Crossing the Line
by InvisiblePrincess2002
Summary: AU. When a personal crisis occurs in Blair's life, she suddenly runs away from Eastland. After her parents abandon her in her hour of need, it is up to Mrs. Garrett to intervene and take matters into her own hands.
1. Battle of the Sexes

**Note to readers:** This story is based on the NBC television series _The Facts of Life_ , which as far as I know, is the property of Embassy Television, Columbia Pictures Television, and Sony Pictures Television. **No infringement is intended.**

 **Chapter 1: Battle of the Sexes**

Just a few short weeks ago, Blair Warner had had it all. As the only child of David and Monica Warner and the heiress to both their family's fortunes, she really had lived the life of a princess ever since the day she was born. And even though her life had not been without its share of problems, especially where her parents' painful divorce and subsequent remarriages were concerned, she had still been very happy, and it truly did seem as though she had everything a girl could possibly want: money, cars, designer clothes, expensive jewelry, fur coats, gorgeous looks, and _plenty_ of boyfriends, as well as wonderful friends. Blair was a student at the Eastland School for Girls in Peekskill, New York, and she'd become very close to the school dietician there, Mrs. Edna Garrett, and her three other roommates, Jo Polniaczek, Natalie Green, and Tootie Ramsey. Even though she rarely saw either one of her parents as often she would have wished to, she had still been very happy with her life at Eastland, with the four other people who'd become a true family to her over the past couple of years. She really had had everything and then some. And while Blair had been enjoying the last few weeks of her summer vacation that year in her mother's beach house in Hawaii after she and Mrs. Garrett and the girls had returned from their month-long stay in Paris, it had seemed as though everything was business as usual.

But then it happened. A moment came along in seventeen-year-old Blair Warner's life that changed absolutely everything. Now, she was no longer the same happy teenager, student, and princess that she'd been before, and it seemed impossible that she ever would be again. In just one moment in time, her entire life, her entire _existence_ as she knew it, had come to an end.

And now that summer had ended and the new school year had begun, Blair's entire perspective on her life was completely different from the way it had been before everything had happened. Classes had resumed four days before, and had the recent events of her life not happened the way they did, she wouldn't have noticed anything special about the scene that was playing out in front of her. But now, she knew more than ever how precious every moment was with the people she loved, and spending time with them meant everything. Now, even the most seemingly insignificant conversations with the people she cared about meant so much and were very special to her.

Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie were standing around outside on the Eastland campus that Friday afternoon with Don and Andrew, a couple of boys from Eastland's brother school, Bates Academy, enjoying a lively discussion.

"I still say you're delusional, Jo," Don Jenkins, a tall, handsome sophomore with blonde hair and blue eyes, told Jo. "There is no way, _no way_ , that your bike can beat my dad's Porsche in a race."

"My bike can beat _anything_ on four wheels," Jo insisted with a confident smile.

"Right on, Jo!" Natalie cheered her on.

"Tell him, Jo!" Tootie cried out.

"Say Polniaczek…why don't you put your money where your mouth is?" Andrew West, a shorter, good-looking, slightly heavyset black boy who was a junior at Bates, challenged Jo. "Why don't you and Don go out to Clark Road and have yourselves a little race, Don in his father's Porsche vs. you on your motorcycle?" Clark Road was a road that was really way out in the country, about twenty minutes away from Eastland, and since it was out of the way, all the kids knew that there wasn't a very big chance of them getting caught and busted by the police for their shenanigans.

Jo had talked about doing something similar her first year at Eastland with an old acquaintance of Blair's, Harrison Andrews, who had turned out to be a real creep later on. He, too, had a Porsche, and Jo had confidently told him that she was certain her bike could beat it. When they got to talking about racing each other, though, Mrs. Garrett quickly stepped in and put a stop to it, telling them that there would be "no burning rubber at Eastland." Now, however, the six kids were having this discussion privately without Mrs. Garrett or any other adults around to shut down their plans.

"Hey, you're on!" Jo responded without any hesitation whatsoever, and then she stuck her hand out and shook hands with Don. "It's three-thirty now. We don't have to be back to start cooking and setting up for dinner until five. Why don't we all go out to Clark Road right now and race?" Fortunately, Jo had decided to change out of her school uniform into a sweatshirt and jeans right after class. Therefore, she _wouldn't_ be racing in her Eastland skirt that day.

Their race couldn't take forever, though. They _did_ have to be back in plenty of time to help Mrs. Garrett set up for dinner. Ever since Jo, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie had had a run-in with the local cops and landed themselves on probation a couple of years before, _and_ had gotten the school van they'd stolen totaled in an accident as well, they'd had to move out of the regular dorms at Eastland into the room across the hall from Mrs. Garrett's over the school cafeteria so she could keep her eye on them, and so they could help her out in the kitchen.

Natalie, Tootie, Andrew, and Don all echoed their agreement in the background while Blair got lost in her own thoughts. Ordinarily, Blair wouldn't be caught dead having anything to do with this rash, reckless, silly race of Jo's. Being the "princess" she'd always been, she would have shrugged it off as being nothing but typical impulsive, ruffian behavior from Jo and gone about her business – which likely would have involved getting ready for her next date with her latest boyfriend, or deciding what all she wanted to buy for herself on her next big shopping spree. But thanks to the recent jolt she'd just gotten, she was now keenly aware of how precious her life with her family at Eastland really was, and rather than just sitting around on the sidelines being a spectator to life like she had been in the past, now, all of the sudden, she was finding herself wanting to be a part of it. She no longer wanted to just let life pass her by the way she usually would have because she'd been too afraid to get her designer clothes dirty. Now, she wanted to live, _truly live_ , and have fun and be daring and even take a reckless chance or two.

"Hey Don, Andrew, I just had a thought," Blair suddenly chimed in. "Instead of all of us going out to Clark Road for a race between Jo's bike and Don's Porsche, why don't we make it a battle of the sexes? Jo on her bike and me in my Porsche versus you two guys in your cars?"

Stunned, everyone merely stared at each other for a long moment, unable to believe their ears. _Blair Warner_ of _all_ people would _never_ make a suggestion like that! To say the least, they were all shocked that _Blair_ would even _think_ of getting into a race with her fancy Porsche.

"Blair, are you feeling alright?" Tootie asked as she jokingly put her hand on Blair's forehead, causing all the others to laugh, and Blair laughed along with them.

"Tootie, I'm serious," Blair insisted.

"Aren't you afraid of chipping your nails?" Jo teased, and again everybody laughed.

" _No_ , Jo, I am _not_ afraid of chipping my nails," Blair told her. "It's just that…I don't know; it always seems that I'm too afraid of getting hurt or getting dirty to really do anything exciting in my life. And now, I want to change that. I want thrills. I want fun. I want excitement. Come on, guys. Let me race with you this afternoon."

"It's alright by me. What do you guys think?" asked Jo.

"Yeah, a battle of the sexes sounds interesting," Andrew said. "I think we can take 'em, Don. What do you think?"

" _Of course_ we can take 'em," Don agreed. "Come on, everybody! Let's go!"

"Alright!" Natalie said aloud.

"This is so cool!" Tootie cried out. "Blair, Jo, I know you guys are going to win," she said as they all walked out to their vehicles.

"Not necessarily," Andrew disagreed. "After all, it is two cars against one car and one motorcycle."

"That doesn't matter," said Natalie. "It's like Jo said: her bike can beat anything on four wheels. She and Blair are going to cream you!"

"Dream on, little girls. Dream on," said Don.

"We'll see who's dreaming when we all get to Clark Road!" Tootie retorted.

"Come on, guys. Let's go," Blair said. "Natalie, Tootie, you two ride with me."

"Alright, Blair," Natalie said, and then she and Tootie hopped into Blair's Porsche with Blair, while Jo got on her bike and Andrew and Don get into their cars, and a few moments later, everybody took off.

It was about ten minutes until four when they all got to Clark Road. Clark Road was a wide, typically deserted country road. Ever since the highway nearby had been constructed a couple of years ago, hardly anybody ever traveled down Clark Road anymore, so it was a good spot for the kids to have their race – _and_ a good spot for them to go to without getting caught by the police or any adults.

Once they all turned onto Clark Road, they drove about a mile and a half down the road to an old gas station that had gone out of business once the highway had been built, and they pulled into its deserted parking lot. After everybody had gotten out of their cars, Jo took the lead and started explaining what they were going to do.

"Okay, guys, let's keep this simple. Natalie, Tootie, you two stay here and wait for us while Blair, Don, Andrew and I drive back to the beginning of the road. Then when I honk my horn, all four of us will start driving together at the same time, and the first person to pass this old gas station wins the race. If Don or Andrew pass it first, then that means the guys win our battle of the sexes. If Blair or I pass it first, then that means the women win."

"Sounds good to me," Don agreed.

"Me too. Let's hit it, everybody!" Andrew said aloud.

"Blair…are you _sure_ you want to do this?" Jo asked her.

"Yes, Jo, I'm sure," Blair told her, but Jo was still unable to believe her ears. She just couldn't _believe_ that this was _Blair Warner_ she was talking to now; that it was _Blair Warner_ she was about to enter into a _race_ with of all things!

"Come on, you guys! Let's go!" Tootie told them.

"We're going, Tootie. We're going," Jo responded as she hopped on her motorcycle and the others got into their cars.

After they drove back to the beginning of Clark Road, Blair, Don, and Andrew waited for several moments until Jo honked her horn. The instant she did that, Jo's motorcycle, Don's Porsche, and Andrew's Mercedes became a speeding blur on the road. Blair put her foot down on the accelerator of her own Porsche, but naturally, since this was her very first race ever, she was pretty nervous about pushing her car to the kind of speeds Jo, Andrew, and Don were traveling at. She pushed the needle of her car's speedometer up to sixty and seventy miles per hour easily enough, but as she pushed her car up to eighty miles per hour, she began to grow a little nervous, and even more so at eighty-five miles per hour. But although she was hesitant, she pushed the car further, up to ninety miles per hour, then ninety-five miles per hour. As she pushed her Porsche up to higher and higher speeds, she began to catch up to Jo, Don, and Andrew a little bit. They'd really taken off and left her behind in the dust in the beginning, but now, she was starting to gain a little ground, although she still had a way to go before she really caught up to them. And while Andrew and Don were neck and neck, Jo was currently in the lead.

Several moments later, the abandoned gas station and empty parking lot came into view, and as Blair looked at her speedometer then and saw that she was going slightly over a hundred miles an hour, she noticed that Don was starting to catch up to Jo. Blair knew that if Don _did_ manage to catch up to her and get in the lead and win the race, he would _never_ let either one of them live it down. It was true that Blair Warner was _not_ used to driving at such insane speeds, and it was true that she was beginning to feel like she couldn't completely keep her car under control because she was driving so much faster than what she was used to. It was true that she was nervous and scared, but in those moments, she remembered exactly _why_ it was that she wanted to do this in the first place. She wanted to do it because she'd recently come to the realization that throughout her entire life, she had always, _always_ done the safe thing. She'd never been allowed to learn how to ride a bike because her parents, particularly her mother, hadn't wanted her to get her knees scraped and bloody and get her pretty clothes dirty. She'd _never_ been daring or taken risks before. In some ways, it was almost as if she'd never really _lived_ before, because her parents had always made her live her life like she was a delicate porcelain doll instead of a human being. And Blair Warner now knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt that she did _not_ want to be a porcelain doll anymore, and she made up her mind in that instant that she wasn't going to be.

Even though it scared her, she pushed her car up to one hundred ten, then one hundred twenty, then one hundred twenty-five miles per hour, and as she did that, she successfully managed to catch up to Don. Then she dared to push her car all the way up to one hundred thirty miles per hour, and it was in the precise moment the needle on the speedometer hit one-thirty that both Blair and Jo passed the gas station at the same time, with the guys trailing them.

Blair heard Natalie and Tootie cheer as she and Jo passed the gas station and officially won their battle of the sexes, and immediately afterwards, she began hitting her brakes and slowing her car down. Jo did the same with her bike, and the guys with their cars. As Blair slowed her car down to a safer speed, her heart continued pounding away inside her chest, and she really began to feel the effects of the adrenaline rush she'd just experienced. Her whole body was shaking, but yet, even though she'd been scared, _terrified_ even, she was now suddenly filled with an exhilaration she'd never known before. _She did it!_ She had taken a huge risk with her car, her safety, even her _life._ There had been no way to know if Blair would have been able to keep her car under control while driving at such dangerous speeds, especially considering the fact that she had _no_ experience racing. She'd taken one heck of a gamble with her own life, _and she'd won_ , and it was an _incredible_ feeling! It felt _good_ to know that for _once_ in her life, she'd had the guts to _stop_ living her life like she was a porcelain doll; that she'd had the guts to take a real risk for a change… _to really live._

Everybody pulled into the nearest road off of Clark Road, which was about half a mile from the old gas station where Natalie and Tootie still were, and they turned their vehicles around and came back. When they all pulled into the gas station's parking lot, Natalie and Tootie cheered once again when they saw Blair and Jo.

"You guys were amazing!" Tootie cried out as Jo got off her bike and Blair stepped out of her Porsche.

"You were incredible!" Natalie said aloud.

"That was the coolest race I ever saw!" Tootie told them excitedly.

"Blair, I cannot _believe_ you actually drove your Porsche that fast!" Natalie cried out.

"I can't believe it either! Blair, you never, _ever_ do anything like this! This is so unlike you," Tootie observed.

"You know Warner, I've really gotta hand it to ya," Jo said as she slapped Blair on the back. " _I never_ thought that _you_ of all people would ever have the guts to go that fast. You're actually not a bad racer."

"We Warners are full of surprises," Blair said with a big smile, feeling immensely pleased with herself.

Andrew and Don had already gotten out of their cars a moment ago, and now they walked up to the girls, both of them looking very stubborn and defiant. They were _not_ ready to completely admit defeat to a couple of girls that easily.

"Alright ladies, alright, you _did_ win… _this time._ But I've got twenty bucks that says you two wouldn't be able to beat us again in a rematch," Andrew challenged them.

"Why don't we meet back here at Clark Road one afternoon next week and race again? What do you girls say?" Don asked.

"I say you guys are on," Jo told them with her usual confidence. "What do you say, Blair?"

"I'm sorry, guys. I'm busy next week. I'm free the week after next, though."

"What are you doing next week?" asked Natalie.

"Oh, it's nothing, Natalie," Blair dismissed her with a wave of her hand.

"No, Warner, tell us what it is that's so important that we can't have our rematch next week," said Don.

"Yeah, Blair, what is it?" Tootie questioned.

"It's something personal, you guys. I don't want to talk about it. But I will say this much: it's something that I really need to do for me. So anyway, why don't we meet here again the Monday after next, say at four o'clock?"

"That's good for me," Jo answered.

"The Monday after next at four is fine," said Andrew.

"It's fine for me too," said Don.

"Great. Then it's settled. We'll all meet back here the Monday after next at four o'clock for the rematch," Jo told everybody. "See you guys then."

"Alright, Jo, Blair, we'll see you girls around," Don told them.

"See you later," Andrew said, and then they both got in their cars and left, and the girls left as well. And as they headed back to the Eastland campus, Blair felt absolutely terrific, and Jo, Natalie, and Tootie still felt _stunned_ at what had happened that day.


	2. Shocking News

**Chapter 2: Shocking News**

"Come on, Blair. Tell us. What's the big secret? What are you doing next week that you don't want to tell us about?" Tootie continued to ask her as they all walked into the Eastland cafeteria together at around four-thirty that afternoon. Tootie was the youngest of the four girls – _and_ the nosiest. She was the utter _queen_ of gossip on the Eastland campus and everybody knew it. She had no problems whatsoever getting into another person's business.

"Tootie, haven't you got bigger fish to fry besides trying to dig up the dirt on what Blair's doing next week, like that big history exam I know you have to start studying for that's coming up in your class on Monday?" asked Jo. In reality, Jo knew Blair well enough to understand that she'd really meant it when she'd said that what she was doing next week was something personal she didn't want to talk about. And _unlike_ Tootie, Jo well understood the importance of respecting another person's privacy and boundaries.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Tootie sullenly admitted.

"Come on, Tootie. Let's go upstairs. I'll help you start studying for your test for a little while before we have to set up for supper," Natalie told her.

"Thanks, Nat," Tootie responded, and then they both left and went upstairs to the girls' room.

"Thank you, Jo," Blair said after they were gone. "Like I said back at Clark Road, this thing I'm doing next week is something personal, and I don't really feel comfortable talking about it."

Jo nodded and said, "I understand. _Tootie_ may not always respect a person's right to privacy, but I do."

Blair gave an understanding nod and said, "Thank you."

In the next moment, Jo responded with a smile before she decided to go outside and polish the bike she was so proud of. After Jo left, Blair stumbled into the lounge, laid down on the couch, and quickly slipped into a deep sleep. She had managed to hide her fatigue from the others incredibly well during the big race today, and in fact she had had a wonderful time, but she was still terribly exhausted and had been feeling that way for quite a while now, for reasons she did _not_ want to discuss with anyone.

A little while later, Mrs. Garrett came in and found Blair practically passed out in the lounge, and it worried her. Ever since school had started back, Mrs. Garrett noticed that Blair had been sleeping twelve hours a night, and she'd also noticed the exhaustion and trepidation in her eyes during the daytime. Blair had been trying her best to hide it from everyone and go on as if everything was normal, and she'd been able to fool the girls for the most part. Natalie and Tootie were still busy readjusting to school life and they mostly had their minds on their new classes and school activities, and Jo was also pretty wrapped up in her schoolwork and in her attempts to convince a sexist mechanic in Peekskill, Mr. Garroll, to hire her despite her gender. For those reasons, the other girls had really been too busy to pay very much attention to Blair's unusual sleepiness and exhaustion. However, it had been impossible for someone like Mrs. Garrett _not_ to pay attention to it and be concerned.

While the girls were far away from their own "parents" at Eastland during the school year, it was _Mrs. Garrett_ who saw them, spent time with them, listened to them when they needed to talk, and was a _true_ parent to them day in and day out. Mrs. Garrett always remained perfectly respectful of the girls' relationships with their parents and she never openly tried to take their place, but the cold, hard fact of the matter was, _she_ was the one who was there for them constantly in all the ways their own mothers and fathers _should_ have been but weren't, and _she_ was the one who was _really_ raising the girls most of the time. Mrs. Garrett never came right out and admitted it to anyone, but the truth was, she really did think of them as the daughters she never had, and like any true mother, she was very quick to pick up on it when something wasn't right with one of her girls. She knew this wasn't normal for Blair at all. Blair didn't usually like to lie around and sleep all the time. Like a lot of other seventeen-year-olds, she was typically active and outgoing, and as everyone well knew, she loved to date. Nobody at Eastland played the field better or more often than Blair Warner. She was usually going out with boys nearly every night, so when Blair turned down several guys and refused to go out on a single date ever since classes resumed four days ago, it really began setting off alarm bells in Mrs. Garrett's head. Being a registered nurse herself, Mrs. Garrett assumed that Blair had some kind of virus or was perhaps coming down with the flu, but it still concerned her when she knew something wasn't right with one of her girls.

In that next second, the payphone in the lounge started ringing, which brought Mrs. Garrett out of her thoughts and back to the present moment.

"Hello?" Mrs. Garrett answered. Then the male voice on the other end of the line asked to speak to Blair Warner, and as Mrs. Garrett stared at a clearly exhausted Blair sleeping soundly on the couch, she just didn't have the heart to wake her. "I'm sorry, but Blair isn't available at the moment. May I take a message?" Over the next minute or so, the voice went on to explain that Blair had signed up to take her first skydiving class next Friday, and he asked Mrs. Garrett to tell her that it had been rescheduled and would be starting at two-thirty rather than three-thirty in the afternoon. "Oh, yes. Yes, I'll tell her," a very stunned Mrs. Garrett told him then, unable to believe her ears. "Thank you for calling. Goodbye," she said, and then she hung up the phone.

Now, Mrs. Garrett was even more concerned, because this did not sound like Blair at all. Blair was not an adrenaline junkie by any means, and she was not the kind of person to take crazy risks with her safety. It was now more than obvious to her that something wasn't right, and she knew she had to get to the bottom of things.

Since Mrs. Garrett could easily see how exhausted Blair was, she decided to allow her to continue sleeping in the lounge while she and the other girls prepared and set up for supper that night. However, Mrs. Garrett did get Blair up so she could eat supper with everyone, of course. Later on, Blair said she felt well enough to help everyone clean up after supper, so she did, and then once everything was squared away in the kitchen and cafeteria for the evening, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie decided to go upstairs to their room to finish their homework. By then, Blair was more than ready to go upstairs and pass out on her bed for the rest of the night, but before she could leave the kitchen and head up to their room, Mrs. Garrett stopped her.

"Blair, wait up. I'd like to talk to you alone for a moment," Mrs. Garrett told her just before her foot reached the first step of the staircase in the kitchen.

Blair turned around then and said, "Yes, Mrs. Garrett?"

"Blair, I got a call from a skydiving instructor today, Mr. Thomas." The instant Mrs. Garrett said that, Blair's face fell, because she knew what that meant: Mrs. Garrett knew one of her secrets that she had very much wanted to keep to herself. She had not been ready at all for Mrs. Garrett or anyone in her Eastland family to find out about that yet. "He said to tell you that your first class had been rescheduled. It begins at two-thirty next Friday afternoon now and not at three-thirty."

"Oh, I see," Blair said quietly. "Thanks for telling me, Mrs. Garrett," she told her, and then immediately afterwards, she put her foot on the first step of the staircase, hoping desperately to be able to make her getaway in enough time before Mrs. Garrett stopped her.

Unfortunately for Blair, though, Mrs. Garrett quickly put her right hand on Blair's right arm before she could get away from her, and she asked, "Blair, what's going on? What's all this about?"

Blair turned around to face Mrs. Garrett in that moment, and then she answered unconvincingly, "It's not about anything, Mrs. Garrett. I just suddenly realized that I wanted a little adventure in my life. That's all. And anyway, you should be able to understand the need for adventure better than anyone. You're the one who won a bet jumping off your family's barn into a bale of hay when you were nine."

"I don't have any problem with seeking a little adventure every now and then, Blair, but I do have a problem with taking unnecessary risks with your life. Are your parents aware that you're doing this?"

"I haven't been able to get in touch with them. Daddy's got a bunch of big business meetings lined up in cities all over the world. I believe today he was in Chicago, and tomorrow, he's going to be in L.A., and in Tokyo the day after that. And I have no idea where my mother is or what she's doing right now," Blair admitted, which was a deeply sad truth. The Warners' business meetings and travels all over the world meant far more to them than their daughter did.

"Well it's obvious that you can't take the class now since it meets at two-thirty. You'll still be in class then and you know your schoolwork comes first."

"I know," Blair said quietly once again, knowing that ever since Mrs. Garrett found out about what she was doing, the battle had been lost before it even began. And the fact of the matter was, she was simply too exhausted, both physically and emotionally, to even _try_ to fight for what she wanted now.

"And on top of that, I think your parents should be involved in a decision like this. You can sign up for another skydiving class in the future if you want, but _not_ without talking to your parents about it and getting their permission first. Understood?"

"Understood," Blair responded in a rather sullen voice, just barely above a whisper.

"And I don't want you to think about signing up for another skydiving lesson again until you're feeling better. Right now, you're not in any kind of shape to take something like that on."

"Okay," Blair said in the same resigned tone of voice, which again, really concerned Mrs. Garrett. Whenever there was something that was important to Blair or to any of her girls that Mrs. Garrett didn't agree with and didn't want them to do, none of them would hesitate for a second to argue with her and try to get their way. Now, it was quite obvious that Blair was too exhausted to even _try_ to persuade her to change her mind, and that deeply worried Mrs. Garrett. She knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt now that something really was very wrong with Blair.

After a long pause in which Mrs. Garrett's blue eyes were locked with Blair's chestnut eyes, Mrs. Garrett told her, "Blair, I want you to sleep in tomorrow. The girls and I will handle breakfast. Once we've cleaned everything up in the kitchen and the cafeteria after breakfast tomorrow morning, I'm taking you straight to the infirmary so that the school nurse can have a look at you."

"Why?" Blair asked nervously. Although she had been so exhausted lately, Mrs. Garrett hadn't voiced her concern about it until now, and Blair had hoped that she wouldn't make a big fuss about it. But now, there was a good chance that her secret just might get out, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen. She was far from being ready inside for the others to know about it. She wanted, and truly felt that she _needed_ , to keep her secret for as long as she possibly could.

"Because I can take one look at you and tell that something's not right. Ever since you've come back to school, you haven't been yourself at all. You're constantly too weak and tired to do the things you normally do. You haven't gone out on a single date since you've come back, and you're so exhausted that you didn't even feel like trying to change my mind about your skydiving lessons a minute ago. That's not like you at all, so I know that something's wrong. You may have simply come down with a virus or a case of the flu, but whatever it is, we're going to get to the bottom of it. Now go upstairs and get some rest," she told her kindly as she put her hand on Blair's upper arm and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "I can tell that you need it."

Things really started caving in on Blair inside in that moment, and suddenly, she felt so trapped. As she started thinking about the possibility of going through an examination in the infirmary tomorrow, she became more and more afraid that the school nurse would send her for blood tests and that the truth would come out, and she couldn't bear for them to know. Not yet. She knew that the instant they found out, they wouldn't understand her side of things, and they would relentlessly try to push her into doing things that she couldn't bear to do, especially Mrs. Garrett. In the following second, her chestnut eyes locked with Mrs. Garrett's blue ones once again, and it was then that she made up her mind. It was typically Jo who took off and ran away whenever things got too hard for her to deal with, but now, it was Blair who was going to run, because she knew that if she didn't, she would be trapped in an impossible situation that would simply too difficult and painful for her to bear.

"I will," Blair said to Mrs. Garrett then. "Thank you."

"Of course," Mrs. Garrett responded, and then Blair turned around again and headed up the stairs.

Mrs. Garrett was the first person to wake up early the next morning while the girls were still in bed, sleeping in as they usually liked to do on the weekends. Breakfast was at seven o'clock on Monday through Friday, so Mrs. Garrett and the girls always had to be up pretty early during the week, but it wasn't until nine o'clock on Saturday mornings, which allowed them all to enjoy a little extra sleep. It was now seven o'clock, and Mrs. Garrett knew she'd have to get the girls up soon so they could get showered and dressed because they'd have to start preparing breakfast at eight.

Before she could go across the hall and wake them up, though, she heard the phone start ringing in the kitchen, so she went downstairs to answer it. Jo, Natalie, and Tootie were already awake when they heard it too, so Natalie and Tootie came out of their room and decided to follow Mrs. Garrett downstairs while Jo decided to stay in their room and mind her own business. However, the moment Natalie and Tootie left, Jo spotted what appeared to be a corner of a page of notebook paper sticking out from underneath the covers of Blair's bed. When she pulled back the covers, she discovered that there was indeed a letter from Blair addressed to her, Natalie, Tootie, and Mrs. Garrett, so she read it.

Meanwhile, Tootie, the reigning Queen of Gossip and Snooping, and the first runner-up to the crown, Natalie, stuck close to Mrs. Garrett as she answered the phone.

"Hello? Eastland School," she said in her usual pleasant tone of voice, with Natalie and Tootie standing close by.

The male voice on the other end of the line told her that his name was Dr. Sid Wyman, and that he needed to speak to either Blair Warner or to her guardian at the school, Mrs. Edna Garrett.

"This is Mrs. Garrett," she told him. "How may I help you this morning, Dr. Wyman?"

He then went on to apologize for calling her so early, but he explained that it was urgent. He told her that it was terribly important that she bring Blair in to see him at the hospital in Manhattan just as soon as she could.

The typical friendly and pleasant expression on Mrs. Garrett's face changed in that instant, and Natalie and Tootie could easily see it that she was upset about something.

"May I ask why, doctor?" she questioned.

Over the course of the next several moments, Mrs. Garrett's face fell, and Natalie and Tootie could see it that whatever it was that Dr. Wyman was telling her was a real kick in her gut. For a couple of moments, she almost looked as though she was trying to catch her breath, as if someone had literally just punched her in the stomach.

As Natalie and Tootie continued to wait anxiously for the phone call to end so that they could ask Mrs. Garrett what was going on, Jo came downstairs with Blair's note in her hand. The three girls just stood with Mrs. Garrett in silence for what felt like the longest time, waiting for the opportunity to talk with her, and watching as her face became more and more filled with worry. The ordinarily calm-and-in-control Mrs. Garrett now actually looked as if she was on the verge of _panic_ , and that really frightened Natalie and Tootie and even someone as tough as Jo, their resident Bronx barbarian. Edna Garrett had always been their rock and their pillar of strength whenever things got tough. She was always the person they turned to for help, the strong one, the leader, the protector, the guardian. Edna Garrett didn't get scared, and she certainly didn't _panic_ , or if she ever actually did, she certainly never allowed her girls to see it in her like this before. The fact that she was too upset to even try to hide it from them now only confirmed it that whatever was going on had to be something pretty bad.

"Yes. Yes, I'm still here," she said quietly, obviously shocked by whatever it was he'd just told her. "Yes, I understand how important this is. I'll bring her in as soon as possible." Pause. "Yes, thank you so much for calling me and letting me know. I had no idea about any of this until just now." Pause. "Yes, thank you again. Goodbye."

Mrs. Garrett then hung up the phone, and practically staggered out into the cafeteria in a daze, covering her mouth with her hand so she could hold back the sobs that were threatening to escape from her throat. Natalie, Tootie, and Jo followed closely behind, and they didn't say anything for several long seconds as they waited anxiously for Mrs. Garrett to regain her composure enough to tell them what was going on.

Finally, Jo put her hand on Mrs. Garrett's shoulder and gently asked, "Mrs. G., what is it? What's the matter?"

Jo's kind gesture and her question were enough to remind Mrs. Garrett that no matter how shocked and worried she was feeling inside, she still had four girls in her care she had to think about, one of whom needed her now more than ever before. Mrs. Garrett quickly removed her hand from her mouth, swallowed back the lump in her throat, and turned to face her girls.

"Girls, that was Dr. Sidney Wyman, Mrs. Warner's gynecologist," she started to explain to them in a deep, serious voice and not her usual quivering one. As Mrs. Garrett thought about it in those moments, she realized that as hard as this was going to be for their family now, the best possible thing she could do for her girls was to be completely honest with them at all times, so she decided that she wasn't going to hold anything back; that she was going to tell them absolutely everything up front.

"Why would Blair's mother's gynecologist be calling Eastland at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning?" questioned the ever-inquiring Natalie who was a budding journalist.

"He called because one of his colleagues and close friends, Dr. Paul Hastings, ran some tests on Blair a couple of weeks ago. It seems that right after she got back from our stay in Paris and went to spend the rest of her summer vacation in her mother's beach house in Hawaii, she started experiencing flu-like symptoms that dragged on for several weeks and never improved. Her mother finally talked her into going back to Manhattan to see their family doctor, and after running several blood tests, he admitted her into the hospital and transferred her case to Dr. Hastings. Dr. Hastings ran further tests and…girls…" Mrs. Garrett said in the same deep tone of voice, allowing the sentence to trail, unable to bring herself to say the words out loud.

"What is it, Mrs. Garrett?" asked Tootie.

"Girls…Blair has leukemia."

Now that the words had actually been spoken out loud, the girls were experiencing the exact same kick in the gut that had just happened to Mrs. Garrett moments before. They _all_ felt as though the wind had just been kicked out of them, even Jo, who was _always_ fighting with Blair and exchanging zingers with her.

"Blair has _cancer?_ " a very shocked Tootie said moments later, finally breaking the long silence.

"Geez Louise," Jo gasped.

Natalie shook her head and said, "I can't believe it, you guys. I just can't believe it. I can't believe that something like that has actually happened to one of us."

"That's the way it always works, isn't it? You always think terrible things like car accidents or heart attacks or cancer happen to other people, not to you or to someone you really care about," Jo observed.

"Yeah," Mrs. Garrett sighed. "You're absolutely right, Jo. We do always think things like that can never happen to us or to someone we're close to…until they actually _do_ happen to us or to someone we're close to."

"I don't understand, Mrs. Garrett. Since Blair's been diagnosed with leukemia, shouldn't she be in the hospital getting treatment? What is she doing here?" Natalie asked.

"Yeah, why hasn't she said anything about it?" Tootie chimed in. "Why has she been trying to go on as if everything was normal?"

"I don't know why, Tootie. For whatever reason, right after they learned of the diagnosis and got several more opinions from other specialists, Mr. and Mrs. Warner just up and left the hospital, and the doctors haven't heard from either one of them since. Then the morning Blair was supposed to begin her first round of chemotherapy treatment, she suddenly left as well. Dr. Hastings and his colleagues have been trying to track Blair and her parents down for the past two weeks. They haven't been able to get in touch with her parents, but the idea suddenly occurred to Dr. Wyman this morning to try the school and see if she came here. That's why he called. Her doctors have been calling all the Warners' different homes all over the world, but they didn't think until today to try Eastland."

"Sheesh, that's rough," Jo said quietly. "She's literally beginning a battle for her life now and the moment the battle starts, her own parents just leave her to face it alone. Any way you slice it, that's pretty cold."

"That's awful," Natalie concurred.

"Yeah! How could Mr. and Mrs. Warner do that to her?!" Tootie angrily cried out.

As a parent herself, Mrs. Garrett was even more outraged at Mr. and Mrs. Warner's behavior than the girls were. However, the anger she constantly felt towards the girls' parents for abandoning them to Eastland was a side of herself that she never showed to them. Deep down, she'd known it all along that the girls were getting the short end of the stick from their parents, being shipped away to boarding school so that they could be raised by others instead of getting any real parenting from their own mothers and fathers. Mrs. Garrett had always known how pitifully sad it was that _she_ saw the girls twice, even three or four times as often as their own parents did. She _knew_ way deep down that _she_ was their one and only true parent and how wrong that was. But the fact that she clearly loved and cared for her girls much more than their own parents did had always been something far too painful for her to face, so whenever her girls tried to express their hurt and anger at being shipped away to Eastland, she would shut them down with the lame excuse that their parents were simply trying to give them a good education, despite the fact that she knew perfectly well that it was a load of bull. She also constantly sided with her girls' parents rather than with her girls whenever one of them had a fight with her mom and dad because she knew that there had been plenty of times in the past when her own parenting had been less than perfect, so she hadn't felt it would be fair for her to be too judgmental of other mothers and fathers. And even though she was absolutely furious with Mr. and Mrs. Warner now for abandoning their child right at the very point in her life when she needed them the most, she still didn't want to show that side of herself to her girls because she didn't want to think about how little their parents loved them, so instead, she chose to shut down that avenue of conversation.

"I don't know how Blair's parents could do what they did, girls, but at the moment, it doesn't matter. Right now, we just have to focus on helping Blair as much as we can. Jo, Natalie, Tootie, go upstairs and get dressed, and then the three of us will take care of breakfast. Then after Blair's eaten, I'll have a long talk with her, and afterwards, I'll pack some things for her and take her back to the hospital."

"Mrs. G., you can't do that," Jo said in a low, serious tone of voice.

"What do you mean I can't do that, Jo? _I have to._ I have to get Blair to the hospital as soon as possible. Dr. Wyman couldn't have made that any clearer."

"Mrs. G., what I mean is, you can't take Blair to the hospital because…Blair's not here. She's gone, and I have no idea where she is."

"What?" Mrs. Garrett gasped, unable to believe her ears. A second ago, it truly seemed as though things couldn't possibly get any worse, and now, incredibly enough, they actually did.

Jo then unfolded the note Blair had left behind and explained, "Blair must've gotten in her Porsche and driven away sometime in the middle of the night last night while we were all asleep. She left this note."

"Let me see that," Mrs. Garrett said, and then Jo handed her the piece of paper. In the next moment, Mrs. Garrett read it out loud. It said:

 _Dear Mrs. Garrett, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie,_

 _I'm sorry, but I really need to leave for a little while. There are things going on in my life that are just too hard to talk about, that I can't explain to all of you at the moment, but because of everything that's happening, I just feel so trapped and I really need to get away. I can't tell you where I'll be going because to be perfectly honest, I don't even know where I'm going, myself, and I can't tell you when I'll be back because I know I can only come back when I feel ready to face everything, and I don't know when that's going to be. I'm going to be alright, so please don't worry, and please don't try and find me. I need to be alone right now, and I need all of you to respect that. Please._

 _Blair_

"Mrs. Garrett, what are we going to do?! What's going to happen to Blair out there, all alone?!" asked a clearly panicked Tootie.

"Just calm down, Tootie," Jo told her. "Panicking isn't going to help anybody, least of all Blair."

"That's right," Mrs. Garrett agreed, just barely managing to keep a lid on her own raging emotions of fear and panic herself, although those emotions could clearly be seen on her face and in her eyes.

"We should go to the police," Tootie suggested.

"Tootie, the police only go out looking for people who have been missing for at least twenty-four hours," Natalie informed her.

"Yeah, but Blair's still a minor. She's only seventeen, so the cops may go out looking for her sooner," said Jo.

"You girls take care of breakfast. In the meantime, I'll go to the police station and talk to the police myself," Mrs. Garrett told them.

"What do we do after you're done talking to the cops and after we're done taking care of breakfast, Mrs. Garrett?" asked Tootie.

Mrs. Garrett then thought back to a time several months before when Blair, Jo, and Natalie had gone to Manhattan together to see a Broadway play, and Tootie had had to stay behind because her parents felt she was too young to be running around in New York City without an adult. Anxious to prove to her parents and everyone else that she was mature enough to be on her own in Manhattan, she'd run away from the Eastland campus and gotten on the next train to Manhattan, planning to meet the girls in front of the theatre. Unfortunately, things hadn't gone as planned and the girls missed the play, and therefore, Tootie missed meeting up with them. Mrs. Garrett ended up driving to Manhattan to help the girls find Tootie, and she remembered what she had told them then, and she repeated those words now.

"We will find her," Mrs. Garrett answered with the same determination now that she'd shown then. "We'll just keep looking until we do."


	3. Asking for a Miracle

**Chapter 3: Asking for a Miracle**

It was now one-thirty in the morning, and thanks to the fact that she'd been drinking from a thermos of coffee she'd taken with her, she was still awake and alert enough to keep driving despite her ongoing fatigue. Even though she'd been exhausted the night before, she'd still managed to fight off sleep until Mrs. Garrett and the girls had fallen asleep themselves and the coast was clear for her to leave. However, where she was going and where she would eventually end up was still anyone's guess. Blair just simply knew that right now, what she needed to do more than anything was to keep driving until the answers came to her and she knew where to go. She could already hear Mrs. Garrett's protests in her mind, lecturing her about not running away from her problems, but as much as she loved Mrs. Garrett, those lectures were really the last thing she needed right now. She didn't need to be lectured or given a hard time. What she needed was to be able to stop and catch her breath after life had just punched her in the gut and knocked the wind out of her. It was in that moment that she thought back to what had happened the last time life punched her in the gut. When she was eight years-old and her mother and father had told her they were getting a divorce, she'd been devastated, and the first thing she did was call up her grandfather, the man she was named after, Judge Carlton Bailey Blair.

It was only revealed after his death that he had secretly been a financial supporter and member of the KKK, which Blair had naturally been horrified to learn about. But even though he'd been a racist and had been involved in utterly terrible things, the fact of the matter was, he had been there for her throughout her childhood and teen years far more often than her own parents had. And when Blair had learned that her mother and father were finally going their separate ways after years of continuous fighting, her grandfather was the first person she'd turned to. She had actually called him at the courthouse crying while he'd been on his lunch break, eating in his office, and he responded by canceling all his appointments for the next several days and coming to her parents' Manhattan mansion and whisking her away from it all. Carlton Blair owned a nice cabin that was within walking distance of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, and Blair spent the next week with her grandfather there, hiking, fishing, horseback riding, and taking in the gorgeous scenery. The more she thought about it now, the more she realized that her grandfather's old cabin was probably the perfect place for her to go to catch her breath again, just like last time.

There was just one problem: the cabin wasn't owned by her family anymore. Blair's grandfather had left his mansion and wealth to her and her mother, but since he knew they never went on camping trips anymore and probably wouldn't get any use out of the old cabin at all, he'd left it to John Spencer, an old friend of his who was a real outdoorsman. Mr. Spencer was a longtime friend of both of Blair's parents as well as her deceased grandfather, and fortunately for Blair, he was also a very kind soul who'd give someone the shirt off his back if they needed it, so she knew there was a good chance that he'd allow her to stay there for a little while if she asked him.

She could hardly go driving to his house at one-thirty in the morning to ask for a favor, though. Blair had drunk enough coffee that night to keep her from falling asleep at the wheel, but she was still quite tired, so she pulled off to the side of the road and decided to sleep until it was morning. Ordinarily, Blair was very picky about where she slept. She was _not_ the kind of person who was comfortable with sleeping on a couch or in a sleeping bag or anywhere but in her own bed, but this time, the relentless fatigue that was constantly draining her these days won out, and after she leaned her seat back, she was snoring within minutes.

It was about eight o'clock in the morning when Blair later showed up on Mr. Spencer's doorstep, and even though he hadn't seen her since she was little, he recognized her immediately and he smiled.

"Blair!" he cried out with a happy laugh. "Little Blair Warner!"

Blair returned the smile and said, "Good morning, Mr. Spencer. I'm sorry to bother you so early." Mr. Spencer was a tall, slim man with a head full of white hair, blue eyes, and glasses, and he was still in his pajamas, robe, and slippers when Blair showed up at the door.

"Oh, nonsense, nonsense. Come on in. I was just about to eat breakfast. Come in and join me."

"Oh, that's really not necessary, Mr. Spencer."

"Please. I insist. Ever since the kids grew up and moved out and Martha passed last year, I often don't get the pleasure of eating breakfast with others anymore." Mr. Spencer was now seventy-one and a father and grandfather many times over, and sadly, he was also a widower ever since his wife Martha died the year before.

"Well there's no way I can refuse an offer as nice as that. Thank you very much," Blair responded.

"Of course," he said, and then they went into his dining room together.

All the walls of Mr. Spencer's mansion were an eggshell white and they were overflowing with pictures of his children and grandchildren and him with his wife. The walls were also adorned with several exquisite paintings, and the dark hardwood floors were adorned with the most beautiful rugs as well. In the spacious white dining room, there was a long rectangular mahogany dinner table and matching chairs, and again, the adorning rug and paintings in the room were exquisite, as was the chandelier above.

"I was so sorry to hear about your grandfather," he told her as they walked to the dining room together. John Spencer had indeed seen the rare obituary of Blair's grandfather that included the information that he'd been a member and supporter of the KKK, and like Blair, he too had been sickened by it, but he didn't want to speak ill of the dead.

"Thank you," Blair responded. In spite of the fact that Carlton Blair had been very good to her throughout her life, though, Blair simply couldn't bring herself to say the words, "He was a good man," as etiquette seemed to require at the moment.

"I know he was very proud of you," Mr. Spencer said kindly, just as they reached the dining room.

Blair explained the basics of the situation over breakfast, although she didn't tell him about what was going on with her health, of course. She just let him know that she needed to get away from it all for a little while and asked if she could stay her grandfather's old cabin in West Virginia for a few days.

"Well, that depends. Have you told your parents about any of this?" he asked with keen interest.

John Spencer was not your typical rich person by any means. He had earned quite a fortune for himself, but he was so independent that to that day, he'd never even hired a maid or a gardener to take care of the inside or the outside of his house for him. Even at age seventy-one, he still took care of it all himself. And above all else, no matter how much money he had in the bank over the years, he never turned the responsibility of raising his children over to a nanny or a boarding school like the vast majority of his other wealthy friends and colleagues did, including the Warners. As a parent, he had always been very involved in what went on in the lives of his children, and he couldn't imagine having a daughter going all the way to West Virginia without him even knowing about it. Even today, with all his kids grown up and independent, he still couldn't imagine one of them taking off like that and being gone for several days without at least informing him about it.

After a long pause, Blair shook her head and told him, "No. They haven't been here _for_ me to tell them about anything. And believe me, being in West Virginia for a few days is not going to be that big a deal to them. Trust me when I tell you that they won't even notice I'm gone." Blair's voice was filled with such sadness and resignation as she told him that that it really got to him inside.

"What about your friends and classmates and teachers at your school? Won't they miss you? Won't they be concerned?"

"I left them a note telling them that I needed to get away for a while. I know they'll probably come looking for me after some time has passed, but I'm hoping that they won't. I'm hoping that they'll respect my wishes."

"I know it's none of my business, but if you don't mind my asking, why do you want to leave so badly? What is it down in West Virginia that's so important?"

Blair didn't want to get into too much personal information with a person she hadn't seen in years, but she could sense it that he wasn't trying to pry or be nosey; that he really was just a kindhearted, concerned old man.

"The last time I went to the cabin with my grandfather, he whisked me away down there because I'd called him on the phone, crying my eyes out about my parents getting a divorce. Being there with him, watching the rivers and creeks and waterfalls, hiking through the forest, going horseback riding…it really gave me a chance to catch my breath after life had just kicked me in my stomach. Here recently, Mr. Spencer, life has just given me another kick in my stomach, and what I need now more than anything else is the chance to get away from it all long enough to catch my breath again," she told him as her eyes locked with his. Mr. Spencer had been an attorney working with the police for most of his life and he was excellent at reading people. And he could tell as he looked into the young lady's eyes in those moments that she was being completely honest with him.

"You know that once you've been gone for a while, the school will have no choice but to at least try to notify your parents."

"Yes, and I can already tell you from experience that they won't have any luck whatsoever."

"I wish I could tell you truthfully that you're only exaggerating, but I know you're not," the older man admitted sadly.

"You're right. It's not an exaggeration," Blair agreed, now sounding like someone who was in fact wise beyond her years, rather than like a spoiled, immature brat, which was how she typically behaved.

"But you do realize that if you're gone for too long, your school will have no choice but to go to the authorities. The police will be out looking for you and everything."

Blair let out a sigh and admitted, "I hadn't really thought of that. All I could think about was how badly I needed to get away from everything."

"Well if you're going to evade the police long enough to make it your grandfather's old cabin in West Virginia, there are two big changes you're going to have to make right off the bat: your car and your clothes. You came to my house today driving a red Porsche and a red Porsche is going to stick out like a sore thumb. And once you get to West Virginia and start hiking and horseback riding in designer clothes and jeans, all of that's going to stick out like a sore thumb, too. People are going to notice that, and if you're serious about not wanting to be found for a little while, then the key is to _not_ be noticed by others. The best way to accomplish that is to drive an average car and wear inexpensive clothes. You want to blend in with all the other campers at the national forest there, _not_ stand out.

In that moment, Mr. Spencer could see it in Blair's face that the girl had no idea what to do next. As a parent and a grandparent himself, he honestly didn't know if helping her to get to West Virginia was a good idea or not, but he could clearly tell that she was going through a lot in her life at the moment. Although he hated the thought of worrying the people who _did_ care about her back at her school, as he looked into her desperate face, he couldn't bring himself to deny her help, and he knew he _did_ have the means to help her get to her grandfather's old cabin.

"Come with me," he told her, and saying nothing, Blair followed behind him.

He took her outside to his big garage, where he kept his three vehicles. He owned a five-year-old blue Mercedes, a seven-year-old white Lincoln, and a ten-year-old tan Chevrolet pickup that he always drove whenever he went out hunting or fishing.

"Blair, I'd like to introduce you to my old buddy, Bob," he said as he patted the pickup truck. "He may be rather old and he may have a lot of miles on him like I do, but I've taken good care of him through the years and he's in great shape."

"I don't understand. You want me to take… _Bob_ …down to my grandfather's old cabin in West Virginia?"

"I don't see why not. I'll lend you Bob for a little while and you can go down to West Virginia and clear your head for a few days. In the meantime, you can leave your Porsche here in my garage where it'll be safe. Nobody'll think to look for you driving a decade-old Chevrolet pickup, now, will they?"

"No, they probably won't," Blair agreed as she mulled the idea over in her head for the next few moments. Then she asked, "Are you sure you wouldn't mind?"

He shook his head then and replied, "No, I wouldn't mind. Besides, as you can see, I've got two other cars I can use while you're gone. It's not a big thing."

"I don't know what to say. This is quite a big favor to do for somebody you haven't seen in several years. Thank you."

"Sure thing. We all need a helping hand every now and then. One last word of advice before you go: stick to back roads, country roads, that aren't used by many people. Avoid highways and interstates as much as you can."

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Spencer. Thank you very much…for everything."

"You're welcome. Just be careful out there," he responded, and then after spending the next couple of minutes exchanging pleasantries and saying goodbye, Blair handed him the keys to her Porsche and he handed her the keys to Bob and to the cabin, and Blair left.

That Monday evening, after what had felt like endless hours of driving, mostly on back country roads like Mr. Spencer advised, Blair pulled into the driveway of her grandfather's old cabin, wearing cheap jeans and sneakers and a simple red T-shirt with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore no jewelry, except for an inexpensive pair of rhinestone earrings in her ears. Amazingly enough, she really did manage to pull it off and make herself look like an ordinary, middle-class young woman, just like any other person hanging out at one of the campsites at the Monongahela National Forest, which of course was right on the doorstep of the old cabin.

And even though the place was dusty and needed to be cleaned and aired out, by the time Blair walked through the door that night, she was simply too exhausted to do it. She was too tired to even make it to the master bedroom, so she walked over to the brown leather couch in the living room and plopped herself down and went to sleep for the night.

When she woke up in her clothes the next morning, she took a good look around. Mr. Spencer had made a couple of changes to the living room of the cabin, like replacing pictures of her with her grandfather that had been on the walls with pictures of him with his wife and family. Most everything else, though, was exactly as she'd remembered it. There was the big brown leather couch, solid oak coffee table, and matching brown leather living chairs on either side of the coffee table, with a big beige rug in front of the couch, all of which were facing a big fireplace in the living room. There were also two matching oak stands on both sides of the couch with two big brown lamps giving off light, as well as a ceiling fan with lights above. Then more towards the back of the spacious room was a small oak dining set and another ceiling fan with lights above it, and in front of the dining set was the refrigerator, stove, and connecting oak counters and cabinets, making a small but nice kitchen. On the wall behind the living room couch stood three oak doors, the first of which went to the master bedroom, the second to the bathroom, and the third to the smaller bedroom of the cabin.

If the girls were to hear that she had _willingly_ gone off to a place without TVs or stereos, or without thirty suitcases of luggage overflowing with designer clothes and makeup, she knew they would poke fun at her and never let her hear the end of it because it was so unlike her. But contrary to popular belief, there _had_ been a time in Blair's life when she was younger, particularly when she was with her grandfather, when she hadn't needed all those things to make her happy. Whenever Carlton Blair had brought her here in the past and gave her the attention she needed and craved from her own parents but never got, she'd been perfectly happy to spend the day just walking through the forest with him, without turning on a TV set or worrying about curling her hair one single time.

Perhaps it was a result of her recent diagnosis, but for whatever reason, Blair now wished for that kind of simplicity in her life more than anything. She wanted to be here where she could be safe from the scrutiny of others; where other people couldn't care less what brand of clothing she wore or what her background was. Back in New York, she always had an image she had to maintain and live up to. When she was at Eastland or at one of her parents' homes, she always had to be the heiress to her family's fortunes, and she constantly had to look and act the part. She couldn't afford to have a single hair out of place, and she could never afford _not_ to look her absolute best. And she knew the only way to ever get _any_ attention from her parents at all was for her to act like a cute little five-year-old whose biggest desires in life were for "toys" like fur coats, designer clothes, and expensive jewelry. Being "cute" and acting like a child was the only thing her parents ever even _remotely_ responded to, so again, that was the image she felt she constantly had to portray: that of a stylish, beautiful, spoiled-but-cute little princess.

But that wasn't who Blair Warner _really_ was deep down in her soul. Underneath her continuous princess act was a young woman with intelligence and depth, who cared for the people around her, and who had quite a bit of wisdom she'd gained from all the pain she'd experienced as a child. Whenever people thought of abused and neglected children, kids like Blair Warner were typically the last ones that came to mind. How could someone who frequented Bloomingdale's and Tiffany's _possibly_ fall into the category of an abused or neglected child? However difficult it was for society to believe, though, it was indeed quite true. Having parents who barely spent any time with her at all through the years was in fact a hurtful, abusive environment for Blair to grow up in. Day in and day out, she was growing up with a very abusive message from both her mother and her father that said, "Blair, I don't love you enough to be here and I don't love you enough to spend any time with you. I don't think you're worth my time." Blair had bruises just like any other abused child, only her bruises were on her spirit instead of her body and because people couldn't see them with the naked eye, they didn't take them seriously. But they were there nonetheless, and they were one of the main reasons why Blair constantly got on other people's nerves with her spoiled princess act. And it might've made her feel better temporarily to put on the act and work overtime to convince others – and herself – that she was so well-off and happy, but for some reason, it didn't make her feel better anymore. She had no idea why, but now, even though casting the big princess act aside forced her to face the pain of her parents' rejection, she still found it incredibly freeing to be able to do so while she was here at the cabin.

The spoiled princess she'd always portrayed would've whined and complained about being without her entire wardrobe and several suitcases full of makeup, and she definitely would've whined and complained about how dusty the place was and how there weren't any servants to clean up for her. The young woman she _truly_ was underneath that, though, honestly didn't care about either issue, and after she showered and changed into more cheap clothes and came back from town with cleaning supplies and groceries, she actually found herself enjoying cleaning up throughout the rest of the day. It took her longer than it ordinarily would have because there were several times when she had to stop and rest a good bit, but by the time evening came around, she had the cabin sparkling inside, and she was quite proud of herself.

It was now seven-thirty Tuesday night, and Blair's body was begging for more sleep, but she refused to give in. She'd been there an entire day already and she hadn't even been outside to enjoy the sights, and she made up her mind that she absolutely _would not_ go to bed that night until she'd taken a nice walk through the forest. Blair was now wearing a blue T-shirt and a cheap pair of jeans and the same cheap white sneakers she'd worn yesterday, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she put on a green windbreaker jacket and a matching green cap and headed outside, looking _nothing_ like her usual self.

Blair walked through the forest a good bit, taking in the mesmerizing gold and lavender sunset and beautiful green trees, and she eventually wound up at a clear, lovely little creek at dusk. The sun was no longer visible in the sky, but it hadn't gone completely dark yet, and there was still enough light for Blair to be able to sit down on one of the large rocks near the creek and admire it and the surrounding trees. As Blair watched a squirrel scurry across the ground and up into one of the trees, she couldn't help but smile. She was free. She was free from the burdensome act she felt she always had to portray, and even more importantly than that, she was free from the threats of chemotherapy and hospitalization. Here, she was in a place where she could forget about it all and leave everything behind, even if only for the time being.

She knew Mrs. Garrett had to be worried about her, of course, and the last thing she meant to do was to upset her or her friends back at Eastland. However, she knew that there was a good chance that they probably knew about everything now, and she also knew that if she tried to call them and talk to them, her diagnosis would be the only thing they would want to discuss, and she just couldn't handle all of that yet. She didn't mean to worry or upset her friends, but the fact was, she desperately needed this time away from the world she'd left behind back in New York.

Blair stayed and watched the creek for several more minutes and enjoyed the peaceful sound of the flowing water, and then she got up and started heading back to the cabin before it got too dark outside. Even as it got darker, though, the majesty of the forest and the skies above really got to her heart. The landscape surrounding her was truly amazing, and Blair was grateful that she'd come here to enjoy it, even if she couldn't stay for long.

The sky was fully dark and the moon and the stars were out by the time Blair made it back to the cabin. After she walked back inside and locked the door behind her for the night, she let out a long sigh. This was something she'd been delaying doing for a while now, but she knew she couldn't put it off any longer. The sunset, the forest, the creek, the moon, the stars, and even the squirrel she'd seen that evening only reminded her of the truth she'd known way deep down inside her all along, and she knew that now, she had no choice but to _face_ that truth.

Blair looked up to the Lord in that moment, shrugged, and said, "Alright, Jesus. You got me. Ever since my parents got divorced when I was eight, I've been furious at You, and I've been trying to go on as if I didn't believe in You anymore, but we both know that's not true. Deep down inside, I never stopped believing in You. I've just been mad at You. I felt like You allowing my parents' divorce to go through was a real stab in the back. I didn't understand how You could let that happen. I still don't. There are a lot of things I don't understand, and probably never will in this life.

"But even though I've been angry at You all these years, I know deep down that You've still been watching out for me. Even though I have been so angry at You, I always knew it that Mrs. Garrett and the girls and me becoming a family the way we did was no accident. I've known all along that that was meant to happen; that we were meant to be together. Although I felt so betrayed by You allowing my parents to get divorced, I still knew that You bringing the five of us together the way You did was Your way of watching out for me somehow. Maybe it was Your way of watching out for all of us.

"And I know that anyone who can create forests and creeks and sunsets like I just saw tonight; anyone who can bring people like Jo Polniaczek and me together and have us wind up as friends, is someone who really can do anything. You've done incredible things for humanity before; You even died on a cross to save us all from hell, so I know that what I'm about to ask You for is no big deal in comparison to that. From here on out, I'm putting my life into Your hands. You know that I'm not You; that I have limits and that I can only take so much. You know that me going through chemotherapy and hospitalization and needles and all of that is more than I can take. You know I can't handle that, so I'm asking You now to please give me the miracle that I need. Please, Lord, cure my leukemia."


	4. Calling Monica Out

**Chapter 4: Calling Monica Out**

The last four days had been rough on Mrs. Garrett, Natalie, Tootie, and Jo, and that was putting it mildly. They got through the past Saturday with Mrs. Garrett, Natalie, and Tootie driving around town in her Beatle, searching for Blair in vain, while Jo did the same on her bike. They looked for her all day again on Sunday, to no avail, and whenever Mrs. Garrett could catch a break on weekdays, she went out looking for Blair while the girls were in class, again, in vain.

It was now three-fifteen in the afternoon on Wednesday, and when Tootie came running into the cafeteria looking for her just now with the obvious question on her face, it really tore Mrs. Garrett up when she had to look into that dear child's face and shake her head. Tootie actually no longer needed to ask Mrs. Garrett the question, "Did you find Blair today?" and to tell the truth, Mrs. Garrett didn't even need her to shake her head "no." Tootie saw the answer to her question written all over Mrs. Garrett's face the instant she came running into the cafeteria after class. And once Mrs. Garrett confirmed her fears with a shake of her head, she threw her books down on one of the tables and darted upstairs. Mrs. Garrett wasn't angry or upset with Tootie for being so rude, though, because she understood exactly how she felt. Personally, Edna Garrett now wanted to scream her head off in frustration, but as difficult as it was for her, she still managed to maintain her composure in front of her girls. She knew that no matter how hard it was for her, she still had to stay strong for their sakes. Falling apart was simply not an option with three other young girls depending on her, even though she was absolutely terrified inside, and was growing more panicked with each passing minute that Blair remained missing.

A couple of seconds after Tootie ran out of the cafeteria, Natalie came in. Before she even walked into the cafeteria, though, she heard Tootie slam her books on one of the tables, so she already knew what that meant.

"You don't have to say anything, Mrs. Garrett," Natalie said sadly. "I already know. You didn't find Blair today, and there hasn't been any news from the police, either."

"I'm afraid not, Natalie," Mrs. Garrett quietly responded, staring straight ahead at the kitchen door rather than looking into Natalie's face. She knew that if she dared to look into the devastated eyes of another one of her girls right now, she would probably break down and start crying, so she stood stiff and erect and kept her eyes glued to the round window of the kitchen door.

"I'd better go upstairs and try to cheer Tootie up," Natalie told her quietly, and then she went upstairs herself.

A few minutes later, Jo came into the cafeteria, and like Tootie, she didn't even need to ask if she'd found Blair today or if there'd been any news of her. She, too, could take one look at Mrs. Garrett and tell that there was still no sign of Blair.

After a couple of long, silent moments, Jo said solemnly, "I'll get on my bike and go out looking again, Mrs. G."

Still staring at the round window fighting off tears, Mrs. Garrett simply responded, "No."

"No? What do you mean, 'No'? Mrs. G., Blair's been missing for four days straight now, and she's really sick on top of that. If we don't find her soon–"

"I know," Mrs. G. interrupted as she finally found the strength to turn around and face Jo. "If we don't find her soon, heaven only knows what could happen to her. Heaven only knows what could have happened to her already," she admitted in a low, painful voice. "Jo, I know how worried you are about Blair. Believe me when I tell you, I'm just as worried as you are. But the police are already out there doing everything they can to find her, and the fact remains that there's only so much we can do now. We've done everything we can to help the police. We've given them pictures of Blair; we've described her car and what she was wearing the last time we saw her. They know what to look for. And we've all been all over Peekskill numerous times. I'm still going to go out looking for Blair to be on the safe side, just in case she's still here, but I really believe that if she were still in this area, the police or one of us would have found her by now. Now, we have to try to hang in there and help each other through this as much as possible until the police find her."

"It almost sounds as if you're giving up," Jo said as her penetrating green eyes stared into Mrs. Garrett's blue ones.

"I am _not_ giving up. I will _never_ give up where one of you girls is concerned. I'm simply being realistic, and in reality, you, Natalie, Tootie, and I have done and are doing everything we can. Tomorrow, I'm going to the print shop in town and getting those flyers made so we can start handing them out to people and putting them underneath the windshield wipers of as many cars as possible. I'm going to go out looking for Blair again tonight once we've finished cleaning up after supper, and I'm going to look for her again tomorrow and every day until she's found. But as hard as it is to accept, Jo, the truth is, doing all of that and praying for the Lord Jesus to bring her back to us safely is all we can do. And once you reach a point where you know you're doing all that can be done, you're simply left with no choice but to keep putting one foot in front of the other and continue going on with your life. You girls cannot just stop living altogether until Blair's back home. You have to keep going, no matter how hard it is. We all do.

"Now, why don't you go upstairs and help Natalie cheer Tootie up? She was pretty upset just now when she found out that there still hadn't been any news about Blair. And after that, you should probably try to get in a little studying before setting up for supper. I know you have that big English lit test coming up tomorrow."

Of all the girls, Jo was undoubtedly the most mature, and for someone as grown-up as she was inside, she could easily see the wisdom in what Mrs. Garrett was telling her now – even if she didn't like it. After a quiet moment, Jo quietly responded, "Yeah, you're right. I'll do that, Mrs. G."

Mrs. Garrett patted Jo's upper arms for a quick moment and gave her a reassuring smile and told her, "Good."

Jo returned the smile, even though she didn't feel like smiling at the moment, and then she headed upstairs.

The instant Mrs. Garrett had the cafeteria to herself, she allowed herself to sink down into one of the dining chairs and take a deep breath. In all her life, she'd never been more scared than she was right now, and what she needed to do more than anything was to allow herself to have a good cry. But again, with three other teenage girls to take care of, she couldn't allow herself the luxury of giving in to the sobs that were building in the back of her throat. As the next several moments passed, however, silent tears began stubbornly streaming from her eyes, regardless of how hard she tried to fight them. She responded by quickly wiping them away with her hands and taking another deep breath to try and calm herself.

Although Mrs. Garrett's words to Jo that she and the girls had to continue living their lives rang inside her head as they set up for supper that evening, she found that she was still on auto-pilot, along with the rest of them. Jo, Natalie, and Tootie were just barely getting through the evening, and they could take one look at Mrs. Garrett and tell that she was in the exact same boat. They did their jobs. They cooked, served, and cleaned up. They did everything they were supposed to do, just like any other night, but their hearts and minds were somewhere else entirely, and it was all they could do to get through it.

Mrs. Garrett went out looking for Blair once again that night after she and the girls were done cleaning up, and she didn't get back until five minutes after eleven. When she went upstairs to check on Jo, Natalie, and Tootie, she was grateful to find that they were in their beds asleep, safe and sound. Unfortunately though, the moment her eyes spotted Blair's perfectly made, vacant bed in the dark, it only served as a painful reminder that not _all_ of her girls were safe and sound in their beds.

Mrs. Garrett quickly went across the hall to her bedroom and locked the door behind her. Then she kicked off her shoes, crawled onto the top of her bed, and unable to hold it in any longer, she buried her face in a pillow and finally started letting out all the sobs that she had been holding back for so long.

After the girls were finished cleaning up all the breakfast dishes and had gone off to class the next morning, Mrs. Garrett went into town and had the flyers made up as she had been planning to do. Then once the girls were out of class at three o'clock, Mrs. Garrett took them out and they spent the next couple of hours handing out flyers, along with several other friends and classmates of Blair's. Afterwards, they came back to prepare supper, and once Mrs. Garrett and the girls were done cleaning up that evening, Jo said something that really got the gears turning in Mrs. G.'s head.

"You know somethin', you guys? This is crazy. I mean, here we are, handing out flyers, going out looking for Blair every single day, putting in all this time, effort, and energy tryin' to find her and worrying sick about her. _What are her parents doing?_ I don't mean to be judgmental, but I mean, _come on!_ It's _their_ daughter we're bustin' our tails tryin' to find, here. Shouldn't _they_ be doing something? Shouldn't _they_ be here, helping us out?"

Even though Mrs. Garrett had had try to disconnect herself from her emotions as much as possible in order to endure this terrifying experience, everything that Jo just said actually _did_ give rise to one overwhelming emotion in her now: _anger._ The more Edna Garrett thought about every word she just said, the more infuriated she became at the Warners because she knew how right Jo was. She couldn't _imagine_ not being there if it were one of her sons who'd suddenly turned up missing. Heck, she couldn't imagine just up and leaving one of her sons alone in the hospital after a leukemia diagnosis in the first place, even if they were grown adults now.

"If you ask me, I say that it's the Warners' fault this even happened in the first place," Natalie commented. "As if getting diagnosed with cancer wasn't bad enough, then her own parents just abandon her right when she needs them the most. It makes sense that something like that would be too much for Blair to deal with and that she'd want to just run away from it all. How could two parents be so heartless?"

"That's a good question, Natalie," Mrs. Garrett responded as her blue eyes began filling with not just mere anger, but _rage._

"I don't understand," said Tootie. "I know that Mr. and Mrs. Warner never spent a lot of time with Blair, but I always believed that deep down in their hearts, they really loved her. Now that she needs them so much, it's like they don't even care at all."

"That's really something, isn't it?" Jo said with disgust. "When Mrs. Warner had that biopsy done on that lump in her breast last year and it turned out to be malignant, Blair was there for her through the whole thing. She went with her to every doctor's appointment she had. She was there when Mrs. Warner had to have the lumpectomy and the radiation treatments. No matter what Mrs. Warner had to go through, Blair was right there by her side. You know, I may fight with Blair a lot and she does get on my last nerve because she's such a spoiled brat so much of the time, but despite all of that, I really do have to give Blair her dues. When it comes to being a good friend and a good daughter, she's the best."

"Yeah," Mrs. Garrett whispered as she, Tootie, and Natalie all nodded their agreement.

"And now that _Blair's_ really sick and _she's_ the one who needs the love and support from Mrs. Warner, she gets tossed aside and treated like dirt," Jo added in the same disgusted tone of voice.

In most other situations, this would've been Mrs. Garrett's cue to take the parents' side and scold the girls to not be too judgmental, and then she would've tried to insist that such an observation wasn't accurate and that Blair's parents did indeed love her. Now, however, Mrs. Garrett remained silent. There wasn't any way possible for her to _begin_ to be able to defend the Warners now, and she knew it, and she didn't even want to try.

"Maybe they're just afraid," Tootie suggested. "Maybe they left because it's such a hard thing for them to face."

"So what?!" Jo cried out. "If you really love somebody, Tootie, then you don't bail out on 'em in a time like this, no matter how scary it is for you. Truly loving somebody means having the courage to put them before yourself when things like this happen and being there for them no matter how hard or scary it may be for you. The cold, hard fact is, if Mr. and Mrs. Warner truly loved Blair, they would've stayed by her side when she was in the hospital, no matter _how_ painful it was for them, because if they really loved her, they would've understood that it's not _about_ them in the first place. It's about Blair. I've had a lot of people bail out on me in the past; people who claimed to be my friends; even my own father, and I realized a long time ago that if there was ever a litmus test to tell if somebody really loved you or not, it's this question: do they stick by you when times get tough? Mr. and Mrs. Warner have _definitely_ failed the litmus test."

"You're right, Jo. You're absolutely right about everything you just said," Mrs. Garrett concurred, somewhat to the girls' surprise, because whenever family conflicts happened in the past, she rarely sided against the girls' parents. "What Mr. and Mrs. Warner have been putting Blair through is nothing short of appalling, and there is simply no excuse for it whatsoever. They're her parents, and it's their job to face this with her, no matter how difficult or painful or frightening it might be for them. They owe it to her to be strong for her now, just as she's been strong for them in the past. The way they've coldly abandoned her…it just turns my stomach," she said, sounding equally as disgusted with them as Jo. "And you're right about what you said about love, Jo. Truly loving another person _does_ mean having the courage to do what's best for them, no matter how hard or how scary it may be for you at times. And for whatever reason, Mr. and Mrs. Warner are _not_ treating Blair with the true love that she really needs and deserves right now, and again, there's no excuse for that."

"Mrs. Garrett, do you think Blair's parents walking out on her in the hospital like they did is the reason why she did all those crazy things? You know, coming back to Eastland, trying to pretend that everything was normal, then running away?" asked Tootie.

"Wouldn't you, Tootie?" Jo responded before Mrs. Garrett could answer. "I mean, think about it. If you'd just been diagnosed with cancer _and_ had your parents walk out on you on top of that, what's the first thing _you'd_ want to do? You'd want to come here to Eastland, to be around people who you knew really cared about you. And you'd probably want to forget all about having cancer, so it would make sense that you'd try to go on with your life as if everything was normal. Then when Mrs. G. told you that she was taking you to the infirmary to see the nurse in the morning and you knew your secret was in danger of getting out, you'd probably want to split because, again, cancer would be the last thing you'd want to think about."

"She must be so scared," Tootie said with a low whisper.

"Yeah, and that's not the worst of it, either," Natalie added. "The fact that they haven't found Blair in so long really scares the heck out of me. It would not have taken this long for us to hear back from Blair if something hadn't happened to her. What if she's hurt? Or what if she's been kidnapped? Or what if her illness has gotten worse and she's lying out there unconscious somewhere?"

"Now girls, let's not go jumping to conclusions," Mrs. Garrett told them in a serious voice, trying to silence her own worries and fears inside that Natalie's questions stirred up. "Blair's probably found someplace to go where she feels she can get her mind off her problems right now. I know how scary this is, but I'm sure that we'll hear from her soon, or that the police will find her and bring her back to us."

"But what if that doesn't happen, Mrs. Garrett? What if we _don't_ hear from Blair, and what if the police _don't_ find her and bring her back?" Tootie asked.

"You know, Tootie, I've been asking myself the same thing. You hear stories all the time about people who go missing and are never found. What if that happens to Blair?" asked Natalie.

Mrs. Garrett responded by walking in between Natalie and Tootie and putting an arm around each girl, and then she assured them, "That won't happen to Blair, girls. We'll find her. I promise you."

Jo walked over to them then and said, "Of course we'll find her, you guys. You'll see. This will all be over soon."

In the next moment, Jo's eyes locked with Mrs. Garrett's, and it was then that a silent understanding formed between them. Jo was now enough of an adult in her own right that she knew she had to help Mrs. Garrett keep hope alive for Natalie's sake and especially for Tootie's. She knew that she had to help her protect the younger girls from the terrifying gravity of the situation for as long as possible. She knew that as the oldest of the three girls, it was her responsibility, and that Mrs. Garrett shouldn't have to shoulder everything all alone.

After Mrs. Garrett shared a long embrace with Natalie and Tootie, she walked out of the cafeteria and into the kitchen. Natalie and Tootie decided to go into the lounge and watch a little television to try and get their minds off all their worries. Once Natalie and Tootie left the cafeteria, Jo followed Mrs. Garrett into the kitchen to have a word with her alone.

"Mrs. G., can I ask you a really blunt question?"

Mrs. Garrett's eyes met Jo's once again as she responded, "Sure."

"It's been days since Blair's gone missing. Do you really believe that nothing's happened to her? Do you really believe that we're going to find Blair and get her to go back into the hospital to get the treatment she needs and that everything is going to end up all peaches and cream, or was everything you said to Natalie and Tootie out there just a load of bull? I understand you wanting to help them keep hope alive for as long as you can; I want to do that, too, but do you really believe that there's still hope? That nothing terrible has happened to her?"

"I don't know _what_ has happened to Blair out there, Jo. But until I have all the facts, like I told you before, I cannot and _I will not_ give up on her. I can't and I won't stop believing that we're going to find her and get her the help she needs, until I have solid evidence to believe otherwise. I know we're all going through a terribly dark, scary time right now, but no matter how hard it is for all of us, we have to keep going, and we cannot give up on Blair because that's what you do for someone you really love. You refuse to ever give up on them."

Jo's attitude was now a real one-eighty from the attitude she'd shown the day before, wanting to go out searching for Blair for the hundredth time and trying to hold onto hope. While the one-eighty might've seemed quite odd, though, Mrs. Garrett well understood the struggle that was going on inside Jo because she was going through it, herself. Like Jo yesterday, she too wanted to spend practically her every waking moment out searching for Blair, but she knew she had to continue doing her job at Eastland and taking care of her other girls. She knew her girls were looking to her as the example. She realized that no matter how difficult it was, she had to be able to carry on with the business of living for their sakes. But she had other times when she felt like Jo did now, too, where she began to lose hope and seriously consider the possibility that something terrible really had happened to Blair out there. Mrs. Garrett understood that because her girls were experiencing the same intense whirlwind of emotions she was right now, it was more important than ever for her to provide them with a sense of balance. Whenever they expressed the desire to cut classes and spend every waking second out looking for Blair, she was the voice of reason that reminded them how important it was that they continue living their own lives, and whenever they talked about how bad things seemed and how worried they were that something awful had happened to her, she was the voice of hope that reminded them to never give up.

"Like the Warners did," Jo said once again with disgust, as her eyes remained locked with Mrs. Garrett's.

"I don't know what's going on with Mr. and Mrs. Warner now, but I don't believe they've given up all hope of Blair ever getting better. I think they just got scared and ran away, which to say the very least, is incredibly selfish and downright inexcusable," she admitted to Jo with an unusual, angry sense of bluntness, herself.

"You know, Mrs. G., I remember last year when Nat's grandmother Mona came here to visit her, and how Natalie acted like a brat and hurt her feelings. And I remember that conversation you had with Mona about it." Mona had walked into the cafeteria with Mrs. Garrett and talked with her about what had been happening between her and Natalie, and while they were talking, Jo went downstairs to the kitchen with Blair and Tootie to raid the fridge, and she overheard their conversation. Afterwards, she went back upstairs to find Natalie and give her a piece of her mind for being such a jerk to such a sweet old lady. "I remember when Mona talked about how things are different for kids in today's world than they were back in her day," Jo continued, "and how you told her that that was a load of bull; that there wasn't anything we go through today that adults like you and Mona hadn't gone through yourselves. And then you said your little piece about how you had called us out on that kind of attitude.

"You parents and adults _always_ get to call us kids out on it when _we_ have a wrong attitude about something or when _we_ do something wrong. But now, I want to know what happens to _parents and other adults_ when _they_ do something wrong or hurtful or stupid or _just plain cruel_ to kids, like this stunt the Warners are pulling with Blair right now. Who calls _them_ out, Mrs. G.?" Jo asked as her green eyes deeply penetrated through Edna's blue eyes, right down into her soul, forcing her to ask herself the same question.

After several long moments, Jo walked upstairs, saying nothing as Mrs. Garrett really began to think hard about what she'd just said.

Edna Garrett rarely did anything on impulse, but after continuously burning with anger towards the Warners inside for so many days now, and especially after Jo just said what she did, she couldn't help but want to explode – right in David and Monica Warner's faces. It was in that moment that she decided that she was going to go out looking for Mr. and Mrs. Warner now and do exactly that, whether it was a good idea or not. After she went into the lounge and told Natalie and Tootie that she'd be going out for a while, she grabbed her car keys and took off.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Warner had several homes and mansions all over the world. The mansion in Manhattan Blair had grown up in had gone to Mrs. Warner after their divorce, but Mr. Warner also had his own penthouse apartment in the city. Mrs. Garrett knew that they could literally be anywhere on the planet right now and that the odds weren't that high that she'd find either one of them in New York. However, she also knew that if she _could_ find Mr. or Mrs. Warner tonight and let them have it for all the pain their selfishness had caused Blair and _all_ of her girls, it was worth a shot.

And amazingly enough, when Mrs. Garrett showed up at the Warners' mansion at a quarter past nine that evening, Monica Warner actually answered her own door in person – for probably the first time in about fifteen years! Monica was dressed in an expensive matching beige blazer and skirt and white blouse, and as always, she was adorned in the best jewelry and her hair and nails were done to perfection. It didn't go unnoticed by Mrs. Garrett that while the woman couldn't find the time to help her and her girls and the police try to find her own seriously ill daughter who'd gone missing, she _could_ find the time to make sure her accessories matched her designer clothes!

"Mrs. Garrett," she greeted her with a smile, as if everything were somehow completely normal and this was only a mere social call. "What a pleasant surprise. Do come in."

Mrs. Garrett was so stunned by her shockingly casual demeanor that she said nothing as she followed Mrs. Warner into the foyer of her house.

"This is the first time you've ever been to our house, isn't it? Say, why don't I give you the grand tour? I'll start by showing you Blair's old room that she had when she was a little girl. Come along with me; it's right upstairs. You'll love it. It is simply adorable."

Mrs. Warner darted upstairs before Mrs. Garrett could get a word in edgewise, so once again, she simply remained silent and followed her. And the pattern continued for the next several minutes as Mrs. Warner showed Mrs. Garrett Blair's childhood bedroom. The walls had multicolored flowers painted all over them on a golden background and had been painted by a professional painter. The carpet was a lilac color, and the bedspread of Blair's bed was a perfect pattern of gold and lilac that matched the walls and the carpet impeccably, as did the array of golden- and lilac-colored pillows at the front of the bed. Many of the drawings and paintings Blair had completed as a child were up on the walls, and as would be expected, the bedroom also had an enormous walk-in closet filled to the brim with Blair's old clothes, dresses, shoes, and accessories. There was a huge lilac-colored vanity set on one side of the bed and an equally huge golden toy chest on the other, and right beside the toy chest stood a tall golden cabinet with dozens of porcelain dolls on display behind its glass doors. It was in every way a bedroom fit for a princess.

Mrs. Warner chattered on and on for the next several minutes as she showed off the bedroom to Mrs. Garrett, sounding, strangely enough, very much like a child showing off a dollhouse to an adult. Mrs. Warner proceeded to show Mrs. Garrett several more bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs, including the bedroom Blair currently used whenever she was staying in that particular house, and then the two finally ended up in Mrs. Warner's lavish master bedroom. The walls, bedspread, and curtains were different shades of periwinkle and off-white and the carpet was a darker shade of blue. There was a similar periwinkle-colored bathroom and enormous walk-in closet adjoined to the bedroom, and several feet in front of the queen-sized bed was a small step up into an alcove which housed a fancy beige antique desk and matching chair, which she obviously used as a kind of office for herself. On one side of the desk stood a matching beige antique bookcase and on the other side stood a tall silver-colored cabinet with glass doors, very similar to the golden cabinet in Blair's childhood bedroom, which also housed many exquisite and expensive porcelain dolls.

Mrs. Warner still childishly prattled on for several more moments as the growing fury inside Mrs. Garrett continued to boil. Mrs. Garrett was a remarkably patient person and she truly hated to blow her stack at anybody, but she knew she wouldn't be able to hold back much longer.

"Oh, and as I'm sure you already noticed, I have my own collection of dolls, too, just like Blair. You know the old saying, right? Like mother, like daughter."

"Blair isn't the first thing like you!" Mrs. Garrett suddenly blurted out, and the instant she did, she knew there was no turning back. It was _all_ going to come out now. "When you were diagnosed with a malignant tumor in your breast last year, Blair was there for you every step of the way! Any time throughout it all that you ever needed her, she came running! Now that _Blair's_ the one who's really sick and in need of _your_ help, what do _you_ do? You go AWOL! Giving tours of your house? Going on about color schemes of your bedrooms and showing off your porcelain dolls while your gravely ill daughter is out there missing somewhere?! _What in the world is wrong with you?!_ "

Mrs. Warner let out a sigh, closed her eyes, and buried her head in her hand for several long moments. Finally, she responded, "Mrs. Garrett, I am certain that the school and the police are doing everything they can to find her. And when she is found and taken back to the hospital for treatment, she will get better. And when that happens and she comes home again, I am going to give her everything she ever wanted and then some. I will take her anywhere she wants to go. I will buy her everything on this earth that she could ever possibly want. I will stop at nothing to ensure my daughter's happiness."

"Blair doesn't want vacations or shopping sprees. She doesn't want any more material possessions. She already has everything she could possibly want in that department. What she _really_ wants, what she _really_ needs, is to have her parents by her side right now. That's what she needed _and deserved_ from both of you when she was in the hospital. She shouldn't have to go through this all by herself. _She can't_ go through this all by herself. She doesn't need more clothes or jewelry or trips. _She needs her parents!_ "

Mrs. Warner began to pace for the next several seconds, visibly becoming more anxious, and then she snapped at Mrs. Garrett, "I am doing everything I can! I have always, _always_ done everything I could to show Blair my love and make her happy. But being in some hospital…watching my beautiful baby girl lose her hair and get sick…not knowing what's going to happen to her…that's too much for me, Mrs. Garrett."

"Too much for _you?_ " Mrs. Garrett said incredulously, unable to believe what she was hearing. "Is that _really_ all you can think about now, Mrs. Warner? What this is doing to _you?_ What about what this is doing to _Blair?_ What about what _she's_ going through out there right now?! You're her mother and what your child – your _sick_ child – is going through right now is supposed to be your biggest concern, not what all of this is doing to _you!_ Everything stopped being all about _you_ the moment Blair was born. The instant you brought her into this world, it became your responsibility to put _her_ best interests ahead of your own. That's what it means to be a parent! A true mother _never_ walks away from her child in times like these just because it's not easy for her!" she railed as tears began streaming down Mrs. Warner's cheeks.

"Alright, so I'm not up for any Mother of the Year awards," she said quietly. Then after several silent moments passed, she broke down into sobs.

"I know this is hard, Mrs. Warner," Mrs. Garrett told her more calmly as she continued to sob. "I know it's painful watching your child go through something like this, and I know how scared you must be, but no matter how hard it is for you, you have to face it and you have to help your daughter face it. You have to face up to what is happening and you have to stop hiding here at home and help us find her, and after that, you have to be by her side through all of this and give her all the love and support you possibly can. That's your job."

"I can't!" she shrieked as the sobs kept coming. A couple of moments later after she caught her breath enough to be able to talk again, she admitted, "I have never been a very strong person, Mrs. Garrett. And I have never been very good at taking care of others. All my life, _I_ was the one who was taken care of. I'm not afraid to admit it that all through my life, I've been terribly spoiled. I suppose being so spoiled by my parents and my husbands and my lovers over the years has made me pretty weak. A situation like this calls for a strong person, and I simply do not fit the bill. I never have.

"I'll never forget when I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and what Blair said to me. She told me that I had to face the fact that our relationship was only superficial; that we were mere playmates to each other and not real friends. And then she told me that she wanted me to let her be my friend. But the truth was, deep down, I knew it all the time that Blair and I were only playmates and that our relationship was superficial because superficial relationships are the only kind of relationships I've ever been able to handle. I can buy Blair pretty things. I can take her shopping. I can take her traveling all over the world. I can give her advice about boys. But as a mother, that is all I am able to do for her."

"Wrong! That's all you're _willing_ to do for her!" Mrs. Garrett shouted angrily, _finally_ calling Mrs. Warner out on her refusal to be a real parent to her child after all these years. "When Blair first found out about your diagnosis, she didn't want to think about it or face it, either. She was just as frightened last year as you are right now. But because of her love for you, she found the strength and the courage to face your diagnosis head on and to help _you_ face it as well. Facing your illness was very difficult for her, but because being there for you as a daughter and as a friend meant more to her than staying in her comfort zone, she did. She looked beyond herself and she faced up to a very tough situation like a mature adult, despite the fact that she's only a teenager. Now, Mrs. Warner, it's time for the shoe to be on the other foot. Now, _Blair's_ the one who needs _you_ , and it's time for you to step up to the plate for her just as she stepped up to the plate for you. Blair shouldn't have to do all of the heavy lifting in this relationship, and you know it. If you _really_ love your daughter, you'll put whatever it is you're going through aside and you'll put your big girl bloomers on and start being there for her through all of this like an adult. You don't have the luxury of remaining a weak, spoiled child in this relationship any longer. It's time for you to grow up and stop being a silly little playmate and start acting like _a_ _real mother! Blair needs you!_ "

" _I can't!_ " Mrs. Warner cried out as she once again broke down into sobs. "I know it's wrong, but I can't watch Blair lying sick in some hospital bed…losing her beautiful hair…getting pumped full of drugs that'll probably make her feel even worse than dying from the disease itself! She's my _baby!_ She's my gorgeous little doll, even more beautiful than the most exquisite porcelain doll in the world! I can't bear to just stand by and watch this evil disease take away her beauty and her health and her life! I can't bear it! I simply can't!"

"Blair is not a porcelain doll, Mrs. Warner! She is _not_ an object you can merely lock away in a glass cabinet when you're tired of playing with her and she no longer amuses you! _She is a human being!_ And sometimes human beings stop looking beautiful and sometimes they get really sick, and when that happens, the people who love them don't have the option to run and hide because that _isn't_ what true love does! True love stays the course no matter how rough the ride gets, and as a parent, it is _your sacred responsibility_ to show your child true love, _especially now._ "

" _I can't! I just can't!_ " Mrs. Warner cried, still sobbing her eyes out as she stood in front of her own cabinet full of porcelain dolls, and it was in that instant that Edna Garrett saw Monica Warner for what she really was: a hollow porcelain doll. Sure, she was a beautiful, cultured woman and she wore the classiest designer clothes and jewelry, but underneath all of that was absolutely _nothing_ of substance. She was truly nothing like her daughter at all. Mrs. Garrett knew that with Blair, a person simply had to do a little bit of digging beneath the surface and once they did, they would immediately stumble upon a gold mine of treasures. Underneath Blair's spoiled princess act was a very beautiful, loving, and strong human being with an enormous heart. Sadly, underneath Monica Warner's exterior was… _nothing._ Mrs. Garrett knew that Jo was right about everything she said about Mr. and Mrs. Warner: when it came to truly loving their daughter, they failed the litmus test and they failed _abysmally_ because they were both hollow creatures inside with nothing of substance to give to her, love least of all.

And as Mrs. Garrett simply stood there, watching her hopelessly sob like the overgrown child that she was, she saw for herself that Mrs. Warner's teenage daughter was actually the true adult of the two. Mrs. Warner was nothing more than a pathetic little toddler who just happened to be living inside the body of a woman in her late thirties. To put it mildly, Mrs. Garrett was disgusted.

"Then in that case, you don't deserve her," Mrs. Garrett told her in her best deep, no-nonsense tone of voice, and then she left the Warners' mansion.

It was twenty minutes after eleven when Mrs. Garrett got back to Eastland. She knew that it was late and that she should get to bed and at least try to sleep, but she was simply too worked-up inside. She had no regrets about letting Monica Warner have it with both barrels that night because she knew the only thing she'd really done was speak the truth. However, the exchange had left Mrs. Garrett even _more_ furious than she had been before. Beneath all of the rage she was experiencing now, though, was an even more overpowering and unpleasant emotion: _terror._ The more time that passed without anybody hearing a word from Blair, the more petrified she became. She did an amazing job of making it seem like to the girls that she was calm and in control, but the truth was, Edna Garrett was scared out of her mind now.

And it was because she was so caught up in the fury and the terror she was experiencing inside that when the payphone suddenly started to ring in the lounge and she answered it, she really bit the other person's head off without thinking.

"Hello?! What is it?!" she lashed out in an unusually deep, angry tone. The stunned caller on the other end simply remained silent. "Hello?!" Mrs. Garrett cried out in the same angry tone.

"Hi," the small voice on the other end said softly, and Edna's heart stopped. It was Blair.


	5. Stepping In

**Chapter 5: Stepping In**

" _Blair!_ " Mrs. Garrett cried out as tears of relief and joy flooded her eyes. "Oh, Blair, is that really you?"

"Yes," Blair replied. "It's me, Mrs. Garrett. I'm sorry to be calling so late–"

"Never mind that," Mrs. Garrett interrupted. "Just tell me; are you alright?"

"Yes. Well…I'm as alright as I can be under the circumstances, anyway. I'm sorry if I worried you and the girls. I didn't mean to. It's just that I really needed to stop and get away from everything for a little while. It's hard to explain. It's really complicated."

"You don't have to explain. I know everything. We all do. Dr. Wyman called the school looking for you, and he told me about everything that happened while you were in the hospital."

After a couple of long, silent moments, Blair finally asked, "Did he tell you my diagnosis?"

"Yes, he did. Sweetheart, where are you now?"

"It's nothing personal, Mrs. Garrett, but I really don't want to tell you…at least, not for the time-being, anyway. I need to sort things out by myself first before I come back home. I need some more time on my own."

"Blair, listen to me. I know things are tough. I realize you're going through a lot right now and I know you're scared. I know you want to be away from everything that's happening, and I don't blame you. But even though this is such a hard thing to face, you simply cannot run and hide from it forever. You have a terribly serious illness and you _must_ come back to the hospital for treatment as soon as possible."

"I can't, Mrs. Garrett," Blair said quietly as she fought off tears. "There's a reason why I had to leave New York and come here."

"You're not in New York?" asked Mrs. Garrett, surprised at what Blair had just told her.

"No. I'm pretty far away from New York, as a matter of fact."

"Where are you?" Mrs. Garrett asked once again.

"I don't want to answer that, Mrs. Garrett, because I know if I do, you'll only come after me, and I'm not ready for that. Not yet. You know I love you, but the _last_ thing I need right now is for you to come here and give me a lecture about not running away from my problems and force me to go back into the hospital against my will."

"Alright, honey, I understand. Why don't we do it this way? I'll come to where you are for my own peace of mind, so that I'll be able to look out for you and know that you're okay. And we'll have an understanding between the two of us the entire time I'm there that I won't give you any lectures and I won't bring you back to the hospital or try to make you do anything against your will. I'll just be there to listen and keep an eye on you."

After a pause, Blair said, "You won't try to make me do anything I don't feel ready to do? You'll let me be the one to decide what I'm ready to handle and when I'm ready to handle it? And you'll respect my decisions?"

"I give you my word," Mrs. Garrett assured her, and in the next few moments, Blair explained everything that had happened over the past several days and where she was and how she'd gotten there.

Mrs. Garrett talked to Blair for about twenty more minutes, and then after she let Blair know that she'd be coming soon, they said goodnight. As soon as Mrs. Garrett hung up the phone, she darted upstairs and woke up the girls and told them what was going on.

"I'll tell Mr. Parker about everything that's going on and let him know that I'll need to be away for the next several days," said Mrs. Garrett as the girls were sitting up in their beds.

"Mrs. Garrett, we should come with you," Tootie insisted.

"Yeah, Mrs. Garrett, Tootie's right," Natalie agreed. "Blair needs all of us now."

"I'm sorry, girls, but I'll need the three of you to stay behind and hold down the fort for me while I'm gone. When I'm away, it'll be up to you to take care of all the cooking and cleaning in the kitchen and cafeteria. And I want it understood that during my absence, Jo will be in charge."

"Don't worry, Mrs. G. I'll take care of everything. We'll be fine," Jo assured her.

"Good," said Mrs. Garrett as she locked her eyes with Jo's. "I'm counting on you, Jo." Then she looked over at Natalie and Tootie and added, "I'm counting on all of you."

"Can't we come with you, Mrs. Garrett?" Tootie persisted, and in that instant, sensing that Tootie would _never_ let it rest, Jo made up her mind that she would shut down her nagging and inevitable whining _before_ it began.

She got up out of her bed then and looked up into Tootie's face and told her firmly, "Tootie, Mrs. G. already said no. And Mrs. Garrett's right. She _does_ need us here at school to take care of everything for her while she's gone. I know you guys are worried about Blair. I'm worried about her, too, but we'll get our chance to see her and talk to her. Right now, Blair's got some tough things that she needs to work out and I think she needs to do it in private, just her and Mrs. G."

"I don't like it, and I still wish that we could come along, but I think I understand," said Natalie. "And we'll do whatever Jo says while you're gone, Mrs. Garrett. Right, Tootie?"

After a long pause and some arguing within herself, Tootie eventually responded, "Right." And the fact of the matter was, even though Tootie didn't like it, she really did understand how right Mrs. Garrett and Jo were. Mrs. Garrett did need them there to take care of things for her while she was gone, and it would be easier for her to help Blair work through everything if she could have some time alone with her.

Unfortunately, when Mrs. Garrett met with Mr. Parker in his office that Friday morning, he wasn't _exactly_ understanding or supportive of her decision.

"Absolutely not, Mrs. Garrett. It's out of the question," he told her with a dismissive wave of his hand, much as if he were a parent denying a five-year-old's request to eat nothing but jellybeans for dinner.

"What do you mean it's out of the question, Mr. Parker?" asked Mrs. Garrett, unable to believe her ears.

"I mean exactly what I said. It's out of the question. Y-you can't go running off to West Virginia to get personally involved in the family problems of one of our girls. Now that we know where Blair is, I'll see to it that her parents are informed and they'll take it from there. And besides, you still have a job to do here, remember? You _are_ our school dietician."

"Jo, Natalie, and Tootie can handle things for me for a few days while I'm gone. That's not even an issue."

"You want to turn all your responsibilities over to _those girls?_ The same girls who faked their IDs to get into a bar, stole and wrecked the school van, and then got thrown in jail and put on probation? The same girls who, once they were finally free to go live in the dorms several months ago, couldn't even be mature enough to clean up and repaint their bedroom for the new tenants without making an unbelievable mess of the situation – _literally?_ "

Mrs. Garrett closed her eyes in a brief moment of frustration, and then she responded, "Mr. Parker, I know the girls aren't perfect. I know that they've made their share of mistakes and that they can be a real handful sometimes, but there's more to them than that. They've learned and grown and matured so much. They've become a family. _We've_ become a family. And now, a member of our family is in trouble and she needs our help, and the girls know that. And they know that the best way they can help is if they take care of everything for me here so that I can go and be with Bair now. I can vouch for them, Mr. Parker. They know what a tough situation this is, and they know how important it is that they take their jobs seriously."

Mr. Parker stubbornly shook his head and said, "No, Mrs. Garrett, I'm sorry. Even if you do have full confidence in your girls, I still say that this is a private family matter between Blair and her parents. I understand that Blair's diagnosis must've been a real kick in the stomach to you and the girls, and I know how much you care about Blair and how worried you are about her welfare. But unfortunately, there's only so much that we can do, and there are certain lines that we cannot overstep. You've got to remember, Edna, that you're a nutritionist here at this school, not a mother."

"I don't think you fully understand the situation. Blair's parents have gone completely AWOL. The instant Blair was diagnosed with leukemia, Mr. and Mrs. Warner took off running and they haven't been back since, and I don't believe either one of them has any plans of ever coming back and being there for her. Look at how they've handled things so far. Blair starts coming down with flu-like symptoms that linger and never get better, so she's put in the hospital by their family doctor and has to undergo a series of tests. The tests reveal that she has cancer. Then they just up and leave the hospital without telling anybody where they're going, not even their daughter. Then she leaves the hospital and comes here for a few days. And one evening, when I insist on taking her to the infirmary the next morning, she disappears from here as well, and we, too, are trying desperately to get a-hold of the Warners. I inform the police that she's gone missing, and my girls and I drive all over Peekskill for the next several days trying to find her. Even though her parents were informed by the authorities of the situation, we never _once_ hear a single word from Mr. or Mrs. Warner, when the entire time, they could have easily used their connections and made a big splash about it in the press, and Blair could have been tracked down much sooner.

"Quite frankly, the Warners' reaction boggles my mind, and as a parent yourself, I'm sure you feel the same way. Speaking as a mother, I can't even begin to imagine just abandoning one of my sons if he were suddenly diagnosed with leukemia or any other serious illness. But as terrible and unfathomable as it is, Mr. Parker, that's what's happened to Blair. She has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and her parents have abandoned her, and it is extremely unlikely that either one of them will go down to that cabin in West Virginia and even _try_ to talk some sense into her. And if someone doesn't go down there and talk her into coming back to the hospital for the treatment she needs, there is a very real chance that she is going to die.

"I understand what you're saying about us not overstepping ourselves, and I made up my mind a long time ago that I would never try to take the place of the girls' parents in their lives. But it's pretty clear that if I don't step in this time, Blair isn't even going to _have_ a life. You can sit there and argue with me all you want that it isn't my place and it isn't my job, but we both know perfectly well that it is. I gave the school my word two years ago that I would accept personal responsibility for these girls. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Warner can choose to forget their responsibility to Blair, but I can't. I made a personal commitment to always look out for my girls' well-being. How can you possibly ask me to stop living up to that commitment now, when one of my girls' _lives_ is at stake?"

Mr. Parker remained silent for the next several moments, mostly because he knew how right Edna was and she was forcing him to admit it to himself inside. Finally, he let out a small sigh and said, "Alright, Edna. Alright. You win. Go. Go to West Virginia."

"Thank you, Mr. Parker," Mrs. Garrett responded, and then she shook his hand.

"Don't mention it," he said as they both got up from their seats. "But if the girls do anything out of line while you're gone or if they fail to carry out all of their duties in the kitchen and the cafeteria–"

"I'll accept responsibility for the girls' behavior while I'm gone. I've already let them know that I expect nothing but the best from them, but if they fail my expectations, I give you my word that I will personally deal with them as soon as I return."

"Very well," Mr. Parker agreed, and then Mrs. Garrett said goodbye and left his office. Then she went to pack a suitcase.

Mrs. Garrett caught an afternoon flight out of Manhattan, and by the time Blair picked her up at the airport and drove her back to the cabin, it was dark outside.

"Well, Mrs. Garrett, what would you like to do for supper tonight?" Blair asked once they walked into the living room. "Personally, I was thinking I'd do something simple, like soup and sandwiches. But if you'd rather go out–"

"Soup and sandwiches sounds delightful. I'll give you a hand."

"That's not necessary, Mrs. Garrett. And besides, you have had a long trip."

"The plane ride wasn't that bad."

"Maybe not, but it's still bad manners to have your guests help you prepare meals, and you _are_ my guest, after all, so sit down and relax. Make yourself at home while I take care of dinner," Blair told her as she patted her on the back. Ordinarily, it was unlike Blair to willingly offer to do all the work in the kitchen herself, but now, Blair really did want to do something for Mrs. Garrett for a change. Her illness had made her keenly aware of all the blessings in her life that she'd really taken for granted before. While she _had_ always appreciated everything Mrs. Garrett had done for her in the past, now, her feelings of love and gratitude for her ran deeper than they ever had before, and she really wanted to put the spoiled princess act aside now and start _showing it._

However, Mrs. Garrett really wanted to help Blair out tonight. Even though Blair was trying hard to hide it, Mrs. Garrett could tell that she was tired and that she really wasn't feeling her best. She also knew, though, that having somebody doing things for her because she was sick probably wouldn't be the wisest thing to do at the moment. She knew that being treated differently because of her illness would probably only make Blair feel worse, not better.

"Very well, dear, but I'll be right here if you need me for anything," Mrs. Garrett told Blair as she pulled up a chair at the dining table.

"Alright," Blair agreed with a smile. Then she went into the kitchen and got out silverware and dishes so she could start setting the table. But as she reached up into one of the cabinets, Mrs. Garrett couldn't help but notice several bruises on Blair's upper arms, which served as a painful reminder to her of Blair's illness. As a registered nurse, she knew one of the tell-tale signs of leukemia was abnormal bruising.

After Blair set Mrs. Garrett's place, she asked her, "Blair, why are you only setting the table for one person?"

"Oh, I had a huge lunch," Blair said dismissively, but Mrs. Garrett wasn't buying it. "And on top of that, I had a big snack before I came to pick you up at the airport. I'm not hungry."

Mrs. Garrett got up from her seat and walked up to Blair, and then as she looked into her eyes, she scolded, " _Blair._ "

Blair let out a sigh then and said, "Alright, alright. The truth is, I'm really not feeling so hot tonight, and I couldn't eat anything if I tried."

"Blair," she said in a much kinder voice this time.

She maintained her composure, of course, but what Blair just told her upset her quite a bit inside. It really hurt her heart to think of Blair being out here all by herself while she was so ill, with no one to keep an eye on her. Mrs. Garrett knew Blair probably hadn't been eating and drinking enough, which definitely worried her. But that was going to stop right now.

"It's no big deal, Mrs. Garrett. It's just one meal. I'll be fine."

"Yes, you will be, because from here on out, _I'm_ taking the reins. I may be the guest, but you are _still_ one of my girls and it is _still_ my job to look after you when you're not well." Then she pointed to one of the dining chairs and told her, "Sit."

"Mrs. Garrett–" Blair tried to protest.

"No arguments," she interrupted. "Now, let me see what all you've got in here," she said as she started looking in the refrigerator and all the cabinets. "Good," she declared a moment later. "You have everything I need to make you some of my homemade chicken soup. Nobody can say no to that."

As Mrs. Garrett got to work in the kitchen, Blair sat at the dining table fighting off tears. She'd been in a tremendous amount of pain because of what her parents had put her through over the past few weeks, and all of the sudden, it felt so good to be reminded that she did have someone in her life who was worried about whether or not she ate enough and how she was doing.

After they were finished eating that night and they cleaned up the dishes, they sat down together at the dining table once again, across from each other. Then Blair locked her eyes with Mrs. Garrett's and told her, "Thank you, Mrs. Garrett. Thank you so much for going to all this trouble."

Mrs. Garrett shook her head and responded, "It's no trouble at all, Blair. And besides, it's not exactly a secret that I do love to cook."

Blair now shook her head and said, "That's not what I mean. I mean, thank you for coming all the way down here just to check on me and keep an eye on me. Not everybody would do that."

"Oh, honey," she said kindly, and then she got up and walked behind Blair's chair and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. A moment later, she lovingly kissed the top of Blair's head. "Well, sweetheart, you just remember that you are a caring, sensitive, thoughtful, and absolutely precious girl and that if others in your life don't treat you with the love and respect you deserve, _they_ are the ones with the problem, not you. It's their fault, _not yours_ ," she told her firmly.

Blair took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, and then she got up, faced Mrs. Garrett, and said to her, "As much as I'd love to believe that, I don't think it's entirely true. Everything I've been going through these past few weeks has forced me to be more brutally honest with myself than I've ever been before in my entire life. And sadly, I think that I've brought a lot of my problems on myself."

"What are you saying, Blair? Are you saying that you think it's your fault you're sick, or that you think it's your fault the terrible way your parents responded to your diagnosis?"

"Contrary to popular belief, I actually do have a lot of self-awareness. Much more than most other people realize, as a matter of fact. I know that when I'm around everybody else back home, ninety-nine percent of the time, I act like a stupid, snobbish, self-centered, spoiled little two-year-old. I know that most of the time, I really do act like _I_ am the only person I care about. And I know I act like my clothes and my hairstyle are the most important things in my life. I know that most of the time, I can be a real pain in the behind. Maybe…" Blair started to say, but she was hesitant to finish.

"Maybe _what_ , Blair?" Mrs. Garrett nudged her. While she was surprised to hear Blair make such a hard confession about herself, Mrs. Garrett sensed it in that moment that she really needed to finish what she was going to say, even if it was difficult for her.

Tears inevitably came to Blair's eyes then. Even though she hated to cry, she really couldn't help it now. However, she sensed it, too, that she really did need to keep talking it all out now, no matter how hard it was to do so, so she wiped her eyes and took a deep breath and continued. "Maybe God is punishing me now for the stupid and selfish way I've acted all my life," she told Mrs. Garrett. "Maybe the reason why He hasn't healed me of my cancer like I asked Him to is because He's paying me back for the bad way I've behaved all these years."

Mrs. Garrett fervently shook her head and said, "Oh no, Blair, you couldn't be more wrong. You didn't get leukemia because God is looking to punish you for anything. You got leukemia because we live in a fallen world where terrible things like car accidents and broken bones and illnesses happen to people, to _good_ people. God's not any happier than you are about your diagnosis. But even though He has performed a lot of miracles for humanity, most of the time, He doesn't just snap His fingers and miraculously cure us when things like this happen. He expects us to use what we have at our disposal with modern medicine. He expects _us_ to accept responsibility for our own health by doing the things that medical professionals tell us to do."

"Please, don't go there, Mrs. Garrett," Blair pleaded. "I don't want to talk about going back into the hospital and chemotherapy and constant needles and tests. I don't want to think about those things. Not tonight."

"I know how hard it is for you to think about, Blair, but _you've_ _got to._ You can't continue to hide away in this cabin while your illness is eating away at you inside."

"Why not? I've had other things eating away at me inside for years. It's not like I'm not used to it."

"What is it, honey? What's been eating away at you?"

Unable to hold it all in any longer, Blair broke down into sobs, and Mrs. Garrett didn't hesitate to pull her into her arms and hold onto her while she cried. After several long moments, Mrs. Garrett planted a firm kiss on Blair's cheek and continued to rub her back, and she simply allowed her to cry like she needed to.

Finally, once Blair was able to settle down again, Mrs. Garrett pressed her. "Blair, I know that this is very hard for you, but talk to me," she insisted. " _Please_."

After a long pause, Blair finally explained, "People think I have it so easy. They think I've always had it so easy and so wonderful. They take one look at me and they see a pampered, spoiled little princess, and they think that's all there is. They think I've always had everything I ever wanted and then some, right from the moment I was born. But nothing could be farther from the truth. I've _never_ had what I _really_ wanted, not even for a second."

"And what was it that you really wanted?"

Blair looked Mrs. Garrett straight in the eyes then and answered, "Love. And I _don't_ mean the kind of 'love' that just bought me toys and clothes and material possessions to keep me occupied while my parents were off traveling or doing business. No, I mean the kind of _real love_ that parents are _supposed_ to have for their child, where they actually _spend time_ with their child and get to know her and get personally involved in her everyday life. The kind of love that actually would have put in the time and the effort to raise me in person rather than having some boarding school do it for them. The kind of love you've always shown to your sons.

"It always hurt so badly, Mrs. Garrett, the way they hardly spent any time with me at all when I was a kid. It was always _so hard_ to get their attention, even for just a little while. Believe it or not, I actually _don't_ like being the airheaded spoiled brat that everybody else hates and that nobody ever takes seriously. But the thing is, when I was younger, _I tried_ being my true self; the person I _really_ was underneath all of that; the person who _does_ have intelligence and _does_ have bigger concerns in her life besides what her hair looks like. As hard as this may be to believe, I actually used to be a straight-A student. But straight As _never_ got their attention for more than about thirty seconds. No, it was the perfect head of blonde curls and wearing cute dresses and throwing temper tantrums whenever I didn't get a toy I wanted that got their attention. _That_ is the only thing they _ever_ responded to. And I figured if I couldn't get my parents to love me enough to spend some real time with me, I could at least have their attention for an occasional afternoon if I was their cute little princess.

"Then when I got older, I found that being the beautiful little princess also worked if I wanted to get attention from boys. Like my parents, a lot of guys don't respond well to a girl who's a straight-A student, but they _do_ respond to what Jo calls 'the dippy female.' It still hurt so much the way my own parents seemed to recoil at the thought of spending time with me and actually being involved in my life. I never told another person this before, but the truth is, way deep down inside me, I always felt that if my own parents could reject me like that, I must really be worthless. But I found that getting boys to like me and spend time with me did make me feel a little better about myself, even if only for a little while. It's never enough to make that gnawing pain of rejection I'm constantly feeling deep down go away, but it does ease the pain for a little bit of time.

"The funny thing is, until I got away from New York – and from having to put on that spoiled act all the time – I never realized what a heavy burden it had become. It was just something I'd gotten used to. I think I acted like a spoiled idiot for so long that I actually forgot that it wasn't really me. Now that I remember who that person is, there's no way I can go back to Manhattan; back to the way things were. I can't carry that burden any longer, Mrs. Garrett. I just can't.

"And I also can't go back to New York and go into the hospital like you want me to, either. Going back into the hospital...going through everything I'm going to have to go through…having to fight for my life, _literally_ , and having to do it _knowing_ that my own parents don't love me enough to be there…that's too much, Mrs. Garrett," Blair told her as silent tears fell from her eyes. "That is so much more than what my heart is able to take."

"Oh, Blair," Edna gasped as she pulled her into her arms once again and started crying silent tears of her own. After another long embrace, she said to her, "You know, honey, you're right. You have never been more brutally honest with yourself than you are being right now, and I'm proud of you. It takes a great deal of courage to be able to face yourself like that. And now, it's my turn. It's time for me to be brutally honest and to start coming clean about some things that I've never admitted to you girls before.

"Blair, do you remember the way your mother treated you when she came to Eastland for Parents' Night, and how I responded?" When Blair's mother came up to Eastland for Parents' Night three years ago, she'd run into an old boyfriend of hers who had long since gotten married and had a daughter, who was also a student at Eastland. Despite the fact that he was married, though, Mrs. Warner still accepted his romantic advances and made plans to go out on a date with him, and she did all of this regardless of how it would affect her daughter and humiliate her in front of her friends if word got out about it – which it inevitably did.

"Yes, I remember."

"You know how I hate lying, but unfortunately, there have been times when I haven't been completely honest with you girls. I hadn't been working at Eastland very long when your mother came that night and started making plans to have a romantic evening with a married man. I had only just met your mother, and so I didn't feel it was my place to make judgment calls about her decisions as a parent, and since I hadn't been at Eastland very long, I didn't want to make any big scenes – which I _would_ have done had I told your mother what I _really_ thought of her that night for all she put you through."

To say Blair was _stunned_ at hearing Mrs. Garrett say that would be an understatement. Blair really had believed all this time that Mrs. Garrett had sided with her mother over her, and while she had agreed with what Mrs. Garrett had told her in her lecture to her, it had always really stung that Mrs. Garrett never once said a word about the way her mother had treated her that night.

"The truth is, Blair, when you got that whole lecture from me about what it means to love somebody, you were only getting half of the story. Yes, loving somebody _does_ mean that you can't just love the parts you like and that you do have to accept the whole package, like I told you that night. But what I _didn't_ tell you was that I as a parent was _infuriated_ at the way your mother treated you. I didn't tell you that I agreed with you that the way your mother was behaving was flat out wrong, and that I felt she was not setting a good example for you the way a mother should. I also didn't tell you that when I fed you that whole line about how not every parent came up to see their child that night but your mother came, it was nothing but a cheap guilt trip and a load of bull. I didn't tell you that I as a parent was well aware of the fact that you deserved a mother and a father who spent time with you _every night_ , not just that one. I didn't tell you that _I_ _did see it_ how disrespectful it was to you for your mother to start up an affair with a married man in front of you and your classmates, and to hit you on top of that, and that I found her behavior appalling.

"Being a parent means setting a good example for your child, and it _also_ means treating your child with respect, and your mother was terribly disrespectful to you that night, and that was wrong. Children are supposed to respect and obey their parents, but the parent/child relationship is _never_ supposed to be a one-way street working against the child, and that is what your relationship with your parents has been all your life, and it breaks my heart. It always has. And I want you to know that _I do realize_ how wrong it is that you're mere pen-pals with your parents and that they hardly ever see you. Like Parents' Night, it's one of those things that has just been too hard for me to really talk to you girls about.

"I know how I've always made excuses for your mothers and fathers shipping you girls away to Eastland rather than raising you themselves like _real parents._ I know how I've always fed you the tired old line, 'Your parents are just trying to give you a good education.' The truth is, that line, too, is a load of bull, and I know it. I only feed it to you girls because I don't want you to experience the pain of doubting your parents' love for you, so I always try to put a stop to that way of thinking before it can begin.

"I've seen it all along how much you struggle with this, Blair. I know how badly your parents have always hurt you, and I know how hard it's been to find ways to cope with that pain. But I want you to know that _we all_ know there's a strong, intelligent, mature, thoughtful, and very loving young woman underneath your princess exterior. _We've always known that._ You're not fooling anybody, least of all the girls and me. And I want you to please, _please_ hear me when I tell you that that strong, intelligent, mature, thoughtful, and loving young woman _did not_ deserve to be rejected by her parents like she was. I want you to hear me when I tell you that _it is their fault_ that they are not wise and mature enough themselves to be able to appreciate her, because _she is_ _absolutely priceless._ " In those moments, as Edna firmly held Blair's gaze with her eyes, Blair couldn't help but break down and start crying again. Edna waited patiently for Blair to cry it all out for the next minute. Then she locked her eyes with Blair's once more and continued, " _It is not now nor was it ever your fault_ that they didn't stay involved in your life and spend time with you. _You never_ deserved to get rejected like that, Blair. That is _their fault._ That's on them. _They_ are the ones with the problem, _not you._

"And while we're getting really personal, I may as well tell you about a promise I made to myself a couple of years ago. Two years ago when I told Mr. Harris that I would be personally responsible for you girls, I promised myself that while I would always be there for all of you, I would never do anything to get in the way of your relationships with your parents. I promised myself that I would always be respectful of your relationships with your mothers and fathers. I always told myself that I would never try to take your parents' places in your lives, and up to this point, I haven't. There has always been a very obvious line that under normal circumstances, I would never dare to cross. But now, I'm about to cross it.

"I never told you girls this, but even though we all know I'm not your mother, I find myself _constantly_ wishing that I were. You girls really are the daughters I never had, and the truth is, I couldn't love you any more if I tried. I love you girls just as much as I love my sons. Blair, I honestly couldn't have any more love in my heart for you had I carried you and given birth to you myself. I realize that asking you to go through this fight against your illness without the support of your parents is asking far too much. I'm not asking that of you. What I _am_ asking is for you to allow _me_ to support you through this, not as a school nutritionist or as a friend, but as a mother; as someone who would _gladly_ snatch you up and adopt you herself if she could. It may be inappropriate and it may be crossing the line, but we both have to face reality, here. And the bitter reality is, neither your mother nor your father has the courage or the maturity to step in now and start acting like the parents they should have been all along, so someone has got to. I'm asking you to let that someone be me, Blair. Please."

Part of Blair wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around Mrs. Garrett and cling to her for dear life, but she was still so overwhelmed that she really couldn't bring herself to say anything at all. She knew Mrs. Garrett was right. She knew she should let her in now and allow her to start being the parent to her that neither her mother nor her father had ever been, and deep down, she _wanted_ to do that more than anything. But the thought of going back into the hospital and enduring chemotherapy and battling for her life still felt like so much more than she could take.

Blair turned away from Mrs. Garrett then and took a couple of steps away from her. In the next moment, she told her, "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Mrs. Garrett, but I'm sorry. I can't go back to New York and go into the hospital again. I just can't."

Mrs. Garrett walked up behind Blair, put her hands on her upper arms, and said to her in a deep, emotional voice, "I won't let you put this off, Blair. _I don't want to lose you._ "

That struck a chord very deep inside Blair because she vividly remembered saying the exact same words to her own mother after her diagnosis.

"I know this is hard, sweetheart. I know this is the hardest thing you've ever faced, and I know how scary it is for you. I'm scared, too. But you _are not_ doing this alone," said Mrs. Garrett, and then she walked around to where she was facing Blair and making eye contact with her once again. "You and I will use the buddy system, like they do in swimming. Any time throughout all of this that you feel like you're going under, _hang on to me._ "

Mrs. Garrett's words really got to Blair now because, amazingly enough, they were once again the exact same words she'd used to help her mother when she'd been going through her own battle with cancer. And again, she couldn't help but break down and start crying, and Mrs. Garrett didn't hesitate to hold her as she sobbed for the next several minutes.

Once Blair was able to stop crying and catch her breath again, she said, "I never actually admitted this before, but deep down inside, I always felt like _I_ had to be the parent while my parents were the children. Oh, sure, they paid the bills and they gave me all the material possessions I could ever want, but all my life, it constantly felt like _I_ had to do all the swimming. Believe it or not, when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, I actually told her the exact same thing you're telling me now. I told her that we could use the buddy system they use in swimming, and I told her to hang on to me whenever she felt like she was going under. But the thing is, even though I do love my parents, I feel like I've had to all the swimming for them my entire life. I feel like _I've_ always had to be the strong one for _them_ to hang on to. Even when I was little, even when _I_ should have been the child, I was the one who had to be the adult and the peacemaker and the therapist as my parents fought with each other through the years, that is when they were home at all in the first place. And maybe my parents did buy me toys and pretty clothes, but whenever _I_ needed to talk to _them_ about anything personal or any kind of problem I was having, they were never there.

"But it was never like that with you, Mrs. Garrett. With you, _I've_ always been allowed to be the kid and let _you_ be the adult. With you, _I_ was allowed to have problems and need help and come to _you_. I never had to parent you. And I have to say that now, it feels _so good_ to have you here with me now. It feels _so good_ to have someone remind me now that I don't always have to do all the swimming."

Once again, Mrs. Garrett pulled Blair into her arms and held her close as more silent tears continued to fall. She then kissed her cheek and told her, "That's right, dear. _You don't_ have to do all the swimming anymore. I know you've been doing all the swimming for your parents for so many years, and I know how tired you are. I know your parents have placed some very unfair burdens on your shoulders. I also realize now what a heavy burden your 'cute little princess' act has become. So now, you have to lay those burdens down. Put the act aside. Put everything with your mom and dad aside. Just be yourself, _your true self_ , and let someone else be the strong one and do the swimming for _you_ now. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?"

After a long pause, Blair finally nodded. "Yeah," she whispered. "I think I can. It, um…it feels so good to have a parent like you in my life, Mrs. Garrett. Thank you so much for all those beautiful things you said. Thank you for telling me that you couldn't love me any more if you'd carried me and given birth to me yourself. Thank you for saying that my parents' rejection of me is their fault and not mine."

"I meant it, Blair. I meant everything I told you just now with all my heart. It's true. And I also meant it when I said that I wouldn't be there for you through all of this as a nutritionist or as just a friend, but as a mom. You and the girls are the daughters I never had. Now, you can just think of me as the mother you never had – the kind of mother who's a _mother_ and not a mere playmate. I don't mean to disrespect Mrs. Warner, but–"

"No, you're right," Blair interrupted. "I believe she does care about me, as messed up as that 'caring' is anyway, but it's a cold, hard fact that she's never _really_ been there for me as a mom. Not the way you always have been. Not the way you are right now. Even though I do love her, at the end of the day, Monica Warner is just a playmate I gossip with and go shopping with, nothing more. And that's _her_ doing, not mine. I always wanted us to be more than that. She's the one who said no."

"That's very true. And it's _her_ loss."

"I'll try to hang on to that, and to everything you said to me tonight. You've helped me so much. I've needed to hear everything you said for so long."

"Well any time that you need to hear me say it again, you just let me know."

"I will. You know, I think that way deep down, I was actually hoping that this would happen; that you would find out where I was and come after me and talk me into going back to the hospital. I'm so scared, Mrs. Garrett, but I know you're right. I know if I'm going to stay alive, I have to go back. I have to let you take me back to New York."

Yet again, Mrs. Garrett pulled Blair into her arms and held her close. Then she planted a firm kiss on her cheek and told her, "We'll get through this thing, Blair. I promise you. Just hang on to Mom right now, sweetheart. I've got you."

"Thanks, Mom," Blair whispered, and in the next moment, Edna hugged her daughter even closer.


	6. Nobody Saw That

**Chapter 6: Nobody Saw That**

After Mrs. Garrett called Mr. Spencer and explained everything to him the next morning, they both agreed that it would be better for Blair to take a plane back to New York rather than have to go through a long car ride, and he assured her he'd make arrangements to get his truck back so Blair wouldn't have to worry about it. Then after they ate breakfast, they went to the airport and got on a flight for New York City. After taking the train back into Peekskill, they arrived back home at about two o'clock that afternoon.

The instant Mrs. Garrett walked into the Eastland cafeteria with Blair, Tootie was the first person to throw her arms around her and give her the biggest hug.

"Blair!" Tootie cried out the second she saw her, and then she proceeded to give Blair the hug of her life. "Blair, you have no idea how worried we've all been. We were so scared that something terrible happened to you."

"I'm sorry, Tootie," Blair told her as they continued to hug. "I'm really sorry. I honestly never meant to worry you guys." Once the embrace ended a moment later, Blair explained, "Things were just so crazy, you know? So scary. I just had to get away from it all for a little while so I could work some things out."

Jo, who well understood the need to run away from everything when things got scary, locked her eyes with Blair's in that moment and said, "It's okay, Blair. We understand."

Natalie then got between Blair and Tootie and gave Blair another enormous hug, and while they were hugging, she said, "The important thing is that you're back now, home with us, safe and sound."

As the two girls were still hugging a moment later, Jo walked up to them. Then she said to Natalie in her best tough, no-nonsense Bronx voice, "Natalie, move."

For obvious reasons, Natalie didn't dare to argue with their resident Bronx barbarian, and she quickly let go of Blair and stepped aside.

Then Jo said, "Natalie, Tootie, Mrs. G., turn around." In that next moment, they all simply looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders and did as Jo said. Once they had turned their backs to them, Jo put her arms around Blair and also gave her a big, long hug. As Jo was hugging Blair, though, Natalie, Tootie, and Mrs. Garrett all looked over their shoulders and watched. "You're gonna be okay, Warner," Jo said quietly while they hugged. "You're gonna be okay. It's gonna be alright."

"I know," Blair whispered, deeply touched by Jo's display of tenderness. It meant a very great deal to her that Jo Polniaczek, the person who acted as though she disliked her the most, was now showing her how much she actually did care about her.

"We're gonna get you through this," Jo whispered.

"I know," Blair said, and then their long embrace ended.

In the next moment, Mrs. Garrett, Natalie, and Tootie turned their heads back around just as Jo was turning around herself. "Nobody saw that," Jo told them, and naturally they all played innocent, but of course, _they did_ see the long hug Jo gave to Blair. They just knew better than to actually _admit it._

"So, Blair, what happens now?" Tootie asked. "Are you going back into the hospital?"

"Mrs. Garrett's taking me first thing Monday morning," Blair replied. "We talked about it on the plane and she agreed to let me have one last day of freedom before I go back to the hospital."

"You make it sound like you're going to jail," Tootie observed.

"Don't worry about it, Blair. We'll come and see you all the time. I know that because of the chemotherapy, you won't always be feeling that great, but we'll do everything we can to make it so it won't feel like jail. With all of us there to keep you company, it'll just seem like the four of us are hanging out like we usually do, only in a different place instead of our room," said Natalie.

"Exactly," Jo agreed. "We'll do everything we can to help you make the time pass by quickly. You'll be back here at Eastland before you know it."

"Thanks, you guys. I really appreciate that. I hope you're right. I hope it won't be too long before I'm back here with all of you and things are back to normal," said Blair.

"It won't be," Tootie said optimistically. "And like Natalie said, we'll do everything we can to make sure the time passes by quickly. We'll come and see you all the time. We'll talk and hang out and play games, and Jo can help keep you caught up on your schoolwork. Right, Jo?"

"Right. So far, Blair, I'm at the top of our class, so I think I'll be smart enough to keep you in shape in the classroom. I'll make sure you don't miss a thing."

"Thank you, Jo."

"Of course. It's no big deal," Jo said kindly, and then they exchanged a warm smile.

In that next moment, Blair quickly turned around and tried to stifle a yawn, which Mrs. Garrett naturally noticed.

"Alright, girls, I think we need to let Blair go upstairs and get some rest," she told them. "It was a long trip."

"Yeah, I guess I had better rest up for the battle ahead," Blair said seriously. "I'll be back downstairs in a couple of hours so I can help you guys set up for dinner."

"Blair, I think you've got more important things to worry about besides kitchen duty right now," Natalie told her.

"Yeah, Nat's right," Jo agreed. "Don't worry about that now. We'll fill in for you."

"Yeah, we'll take care of everything tonight," said Tootie.

"The girls are right, Blair. You should rest. You just go upstairs and sleep for as long as your body tells you to," Mrs. Garrett said. Then she gave Blair a big hug and kissed her cheek, and Blair responded with a smile. She wanted to be respectful and courteous to Mrs. Garrett and to the girls, who were all clearly trying hard to be as helpful as possible to her now. But the truth was, she really hated it the way they were treating her differently because of her cancer, and she made up her mind that once she got upstairs, she would set her alarm clock to wake her up in time for her to help out with supper. She was determined to prove them that she wasn't going to allow her cancer to make her live her life as if she were made of glass.

Blair went upstairs to the girls' bedroom then and laid down and slept for a couple of hours. After her alarm clock woke her up later on, she went back down to the kitchen and helped Mrs. Garrett and the girls set up for supper, despite all their protests. Once everybody had eaten and they'd all cleaned everything up, Blair got to talking with the girls in the lounge about everything she'd missed while she'd been gone. Natalie, Tootie, and Jo all confirmed that she hadn't missed very much, and they didn't talk about everything they went through while she'd been gone and how they'd all gone out every day to help Mrs. Garrett look for her. Eventually, Tootie got to talking about how much she hated her algebra class, not just during the week Blair had been missing but every day since the school year had started again. Then she mentioned how she was dreading her big algebra test that was coming up that Monday, and to everyone's surprise, Blair offered to help her prepare for it.

"Uh, Blair, that's nice of you and everything, but I don't really think algebra is up your alley," said Jo.

"I know, Jo," Blair said with a sad sigh. "I know all about the reputation I've earned over the years as a petty, spoiled air-brain who only cares about boys and hairstyles and designer clothes and _not_ her classes. I know how I've always encouraged you guys to believe I was an idiot."

"Hold on, Blair. I never said you were an idiot," Jo quickly responded.

"No, Jo, that's alright. You see, while I was away at my grandfather's old cabin, I felt I had little choice but to start being painfully honest with myself. I know the truth about how I've acted all these years. I know that most of the time, I behaved like a spoiled idiot. I know how stupid and how childish I acted all the time."

"Blair, we don't think you're stupid or childish," Natalie assured her. "You're just wacky and goofy sometimes, that's all. And a little wackiness and goofiness never hurt anybody."

"I appreciate what you're saying, Natalie, but we all know I'm right. Most of my life, _I have_ acted petty and spoiled, and I haven't _exactly_ behaved like an intelligent person. Not like you do, Jo. It's okay for you girls to come out and admit it. I have. And anyway, I've recently realized that my spoiled princess act is doing me a lot more harm inside than it is good. It's become a burden that's way too heavy for me to carry, especially when I have to start fighting a battle against cancer, so I'm letting it go. Underneath my dumb spoiled snob routine, _I do_ have intelligence, and _I do_ care about more in life besides how my hair looks, and I've decided that from now on, I'm going to start showing it. I'm not going to act like a dumb blonde anymore just to try to get attention from boys…or from my parents."

"Is that why you left? Because it was too hard for you to go on acting that way after you were diagnosed with leukemia?" Tootie asked.

"That's part of the reason, Tootie," Blair replied.

"Blair, you don't have to put on any acts for us," Tootie told her. "You don't have to pretend to be someone you're not in order to get attention from us, or from Mrs. Garrett. And if you feel like you have to do that to get attention from boys or from your parents, it's not worth it."

"Right on, Tootie," Natalie agreed.

"I realize that now," Blair told them. "And that is precisely why I want to help you with your algebra, Tootie. That spoiled airhead who used to hang around here would have rather spent this time in front of the mirror curling her hair, but _I_ know how to help you and that is precisely what _I_ want to do now."

"Okay, Blair. Thanks," Tootie said.

"Don't mention it," Blair responded, and for about the next hour, Natalie and Jo watched as Blair explained certain concepts of algebra to Tootie that she'd been struggling with and helped her to understand them, and to put it mildly, they really were surprised. Of course they'd always known that underneath her superficial exterior, Blair really did have a mind, but they weren't used to her actually _acting like it._ To say the least, when Blair's little study session with Tootie was over, both girls were quite impressed.

After their little study session was over, Natalie and Tootie decided that they wanted to go into the kitchen and check the fridge for leftovers and have a second helping of the spaghetti Mrs. Garrett made for supper that night. Before Tootie left the lounge to join Nat in the kitchen, though, she looked Blair in the eyes and said softly, "Blair, I've missed you so much." Then she gave Blair another big hug, and during the embrace, she said, "I was so worried about you."

"I'm really sorry I worried you, Tootie. I never meant to. Honest."

When the embrace ended, Tootie said, "Just don't ever run away again, okay? The next time things get really tough or scary, just find one of us and talk to us. Let us help you."

"I will, Tootie. Thank you," Blair said with a smile, and then Tootie returned the smile and nodded. In the following moment, she went to join Natalie in the kitchen, and Blair sat back down on the loveseat where she'd been sitting before, while Jo remained standing off to the side.

Once Blair and Jo were alone in the lounge, Jo said, "She was really worried about you, you know. Tootie and Natalie and Mrs. G. really went through a lot, not knowing where you were all this time. They were terrified that something awful had happened to you."

Blair responded by letting out a sigh of frustration, and then she told Jo, "I don't know what you want from me. I've already told Mrs. Garrett and all of you how sorry I am. And anyway, I'm about to go into the hospital day after tomorrow, get pumped full of drugs that are poison, lose all my hair and look like a bald freak, and on top of all that, possibly die. So I think I have enough to worry about without you laying cheap guilt trips on me."

"Blair, I didn't mean it that way. I wasn't trying to lay a guilt trip on you. I understand why you got scared and needed to leave for a while. I'm sure that if I'd been in your shoes, I would've done the same thing. I only told you that because I was trying to let you know that you mean a lot to us. Things just weren't the same when you were gone. Everything was all messed up."

Blair looked up at Jo then and asked her pointedly, "What are you trying to say, Jo?"

Jo let out a sigh of her own, and then she answered, "I'm tryin' to tell ya that you're more to all of us than just some spoiled airhead who gets on our nerves."

"Was there a compliment in there somewhere?"

"You didn't let me finish."

"Sorry."

"When I had to leave the Bronx and come here two years ago, I felt like in a way, I was losing my entire family. But then I found a new family with Natalie and Tootie and Mrs. Garrett...and with you. Ever since I came here, I…well, I discovered for the first time what it would feel like to have sisters in my life. I never told anybody about this before but as far as I'm concerned, Natalie and Tootie are more than just my friends. They're my sisters. And if you ever tell anybody I said this, I'll bust your head, but the truth is, way deep down…I feel the same way about you, too."

Blair was really stunned by such an admission from Jo. During the entire time Blair had known her, she had never before said anything so touching.

A moment later, Blair got up from her seat and asked, "Are you actually telling me that…you consider me your sister?"

"Yeah," Jo said quietly. "Yeah, I do. You're family to me, Blair. You all are."

"Jo…that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard you say. I always thought you hated my guts."

"Come on, Blair. You know how it is. Siblings fight. They disagree. They get into arguments about stupid things. They get mad at each other. They're a pain in each other's butts. But underneath all of that, they really care about each other. And when the chips are down, they're there for each other. Whenever one sibling's in trouble, the other one is always there. I guess what I'm trying to say is…I'm here, Blair. I'm always here."

"I don't know what to say," Blair gasped. She was so moved by Jo's words that it was actually hard for her not to cry once again, as she had done so many times that weekend already.

"You don't have to say anything. Just let me be there for you when you need someone. Let _all_ of us be there."

"I will. The truth is, I don't think I can get through this without you guys."

"You don't need to worry about that. We'll all be here to help you through it, Blair. _We will._ "

"I know, and I thank you. Everything you said to me just now…well, it means more to me than I think you'll ever know," Blair told her as their eyes locked.

"It's just the truth."

"Anyway, like I said, I'm really sorry I worried Natalie and Tootie so much. I never meant to scare you guys."

"I know you didn't. But yeah, it's true. Mrs. G. and the girls were pretty scared…and as long as we're bein' completely honest…so was I. Of course we _wouldn't_ have had to go through all of that if the police in this rinky-dink little town weren't such incompetent knuckleheads. If they would've just done a little more digging and asked around just a little bit more, they would've eventually talked to that Spencer guy and found you days before you called Mrs. Garrett."

"Yeah, I suppose the police in this neighborhood aren't exactly the most professional in the world," Blair agreed. "But then again, it's kind of a good thing they never found me. I mean, don't get me wrong. I am really sorry about everything you and Natalie and Tootie and Mrs. Garrett went through. I never meant for that to happen. But the truth is, I really needed that time off to myself. It gave me a chance to work through a few things, both with Jesus and with myself.

"And I'm also grateful for their incompetence because of my cousin Geri. A more thorough police department would've probably tracked her and my Aunt Sarah down in addition to my parents. My Aunt Sarah is living in Italy now, and my cousin Geri is on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. She got a job entertaining for passengers on a luxury cruise liner that set sail just after we left for Paris. She doesn't get back to the States until sometime next month, and to tell the truth, I'm really grateful that she and her mom don't know about my diagnosis yet. All through my life, Geri's been like a big sister to me, and I don't think she should hear about all of this from a police officer or from her mother. I think _I_ should be the one to tell her about everything that's happened, in person."

"I understand."

"I only hope I can handle my illness as incredibly well as she's always handled her disability," Blair said. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to either of them, Mrs. Garrett came into the cafeteria looking for an earring that had gone missing, and she couldn't help but overhear their discussion.

"Well if you ask me, I think you're doin' great so far. You didn't let leukemia get in the way of helpin' me beat those nerds from Bates in that big race we had at Clark Road, did you?"

That made Mrs. Garrett raise an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you're right. I don't know what made me do such a crazy thing, though. I guess…I guess I just got tired of never having any adventure in my life. But I really was making some crazy decisions. I never told anybody about this, but I actually lied about my age and said I was eighteen, and I signed up for skydiving lessons."

" _Skydiving lessons? You?_ "

"Like I said, I was in a pretty crazy frame of mind. I just got so tired of always doing the safe thing and never taking any chances. I wanted to shake my life up and do something wild…while I still could. But when Mrs. Garrett found out about it, she put a stop to my thrill-seeking pretty quickly."

"Yeah, knowing Mrs. G., I'm not surprised. But anyway, don't talk like that. I know how scary this whole thing is, but you're gonna be fine. I promise you. Cancer is not the death sentence today that it was years ago. People are beating it all the time now, and you'll beat it too. And we'll all be right here with you to help you. You know you're not in this alone."

"I know I'm not. Jo, thank you for everything you've said to me. I'm really scared about all of this and knowing I have you in my corner helps. Thank you for being there."

"Aw, man," Jo suddenly complained. "I hate what you're doin'."

"What am I doing?"

"You're making me want to hug you again. You know it's way more fun to exchange insults than do all this mushy stuff!"

"Yeah, you're right. Exchanging insults with you _is_ more fun. But the funny thing is, I think I want to hug you again, too."

After a short pause, Jo said, "Alright. We'll hug. But we'll keep it very short and we'll never, _ever_ tell another soul about it."

"Agreed."

"We'll hug on three, alright?"

"Alright."

"Ready? One. Two. Three," said Jo, and then once again, the girls hugged each other. Mrs. Garrett knew she should stay out of their line of vision, but she couldn't help but want to watch. She was prouder of her girls than ever for the way they were really rising to the occasion now.

A couple of seconds later, Jo saw Mrs. Garrett standing there smiling out of the corner of her eye, and she immediately let go of Blair.

"You didn't see that, Mrs. Garrett," Blair told her, and Mrs. Garrett had to fight really hard to stifle a laugh.

"You're right, girls. I didn't see a thing," Mrs. Garrett kidded. "But I _did_ hear something, though."

"Oh? What'd ya hear, Mrs. G.?" asked Jo innocently.

"Something about some kind of race you girls had with some boys from Bates at Clark Road?"

"No, you didn't, Mrs. Garrett. You didn't hear a thing about that," Jo said.

"Well while we're on the subject of this thing that I didn't hear anything about…" Mrs. Garrett said as she leaned in closer to Blair and Jo. Then she asked, "Did I hear correctly that you girls won?"

Blair and Jo looked at each other and exchanged a smile, and then Jo answered, "Oh, yeah."

"Good!" Mrs. Garrett said in a high-pitched, jubilant voice as she laughed. Then she quickly put her authority figure face back on and told the girls in a more serious tone, "Well girls, this will not happen again. There'll be no more burning rubber at Eastland."

"Yes, ma'am," Blair and Jo said dutifully, and then Mrs. Garrett went back into the cafeteria to hunt down her missing earring.

Unfortunately, the mood didn't remain that light for too much longer. After everyone went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning, reality began to set in, especially for Blair. She wasn't about to leave for a vacation. She was about to go into the hospital to start fighting against cancer. _Cancer._ She was about to start fighting for her very life, and Blair knew that it was a fight not everybody won. She knew how important it was to maintain a positive attitude, but she wanted to be realistic as well. It was comforting for Blair to spend time with the girls throughout the day that day, but at the same time, she remained unusually quiet because she couldn't get her mind off the sobering fact that she may not have a lot of time left.

Later on that Sunday evening, Blair decided that she really wanted to have a word with Mrs. Garrett in private, so she went and knocked on her bedroom door.

"Come in," Mrs. Garrett's voice called. She was sitting at her desk, and when Blair came in, she gave her a warm smile and got up from her seat. "Hello, honey. How are you doing?"

"Well…let's just say I've had better days," Blair replied in a serious tone.

"I know. I know that what you're about to face – what _we all_ are about to face together – is pretty tough. I know you must have a lot on your mind right now."

"Yeah. You can say that again. I hate to dwell on the subject, but I can't stop thinking about how scared I am."

"That's understandable. I know how frightening this is, but we _are_ going to get through it, Blair. I promise you."

"I'm trying to believe that, Mrs. Garrett. I really am. But I feel I should also be realistic about this. Not everybody survives a battle with cancer. We have no way of knowing if I'll be one of the people who does or not. I've been thinking that…maybe I should start taking care of some things, just in case the worst happens. Like my trust fund, for example. I've been thinking that maybe I should put in a call to one of my father's attorneys and make sure that…well that if things don't go well for me, the money will go to the people I love the most."

" _I_ _will not_ have that kind of talk. Don't you _ever_ say anything like that to me again, Blair," Mrs. Garrett told her sternly, but it was only because listening to Blair talk that way upset her so much. The thought of losing one of her girls really tore her up inside.

"I don't mean to scare you, Mrs. Garrett. Believe me, I'm not thrilled with the prospect of dying, either. But we _do_ have to be realistic. I'm not going in for a facial tomorrow. I'm going into the hospital to begin my first round of chemotherapy. That's pretty serious."

"Yes, it is serious. You're absolutely right. But that _does not_ mean that the worst is going to happen, and I don't want you thinking like that. _Ever._ Cancer is a terrifying disease, but more and more people are surviving it all the time, and _you will be_ one of those people. And you _are not_ going to start making plans for what's going to happen if you don't win the battle. You are going to make plans, today, tomorrow, and every day for getting better just as soon as possible. You are not going to make plans for death. You are going to make plans for life. Is that understood?"

Blair smiled, really touched by all of Mrs. Garrett's concern for her. Then she responded, "It's understood, Mom."

"Come over here," Mrs. Garrett said as she walked over to the side of her bed and sat down, and then Blair came and sat down next to her. In the next moment, Mrs. Garrett pulled Blair into her arms, kissed the top of her head, and just held her close. "It's going to be alright, sweetheart. We're going to get through this. I promise you."

"It feels so good to not have to do all the swimming for once, like I did with my parents. Thanks for being such a great swimmer."

"That's what friends – and mothers – are for," Mrs. Garrett said as she began to rock Blair. Blair stayed in her adoptive mother's arms for the longest time, neither one of them saying a word. It was an experience she'd honestly never had with Mr. and Mrs. Warner.

The next morning, Mrs. Garrett took Blair back to the hospital in Manhattan as planned. And over the next six months, Mrs. Garrett and the girls were constantly there for Blair, as was her cousin Geri. Blair's doctors had to try several different combinations of drugs over the following weeks and months, and in March, they finally got her leukemia to go into remission, and she was able to come home from the hospital. It had been a hard fight at times because the chemotherapy knocked out Blair's immune system, which made even the simplest cold a potentially deadly threat. At one point, she did catch a virus that landed her in the ICU for a couple of weeks, but thanks to a lot of prayers from the people who loved her the most and her own God-given fighting spirit, she got through it. And thanks to Jo's adept tutoring, Blair remained caught up in all her classes, so when she returned to Eastland in March, she was able to pick up where she'd left off quite easily.

Even though Blair's leukemia was in remission, however, she still needed to go for chemotherapy throughout the rest of the school year on an outpatient basis, which was called maintenance therapy, to kill any possible remaining cancer cells and ensure that she stayed in remission. After Blair remained in remission for five years, she would be considered to be cured, which was a time she and Mrs. Garrett and the girls all looked forward to with great anticipation. However, despite the fact that it was hard for them not to worry about it, Blair, Mrs. Garrett, and the girls were all determined to move on with their lives once Blair came back home, and for the most part, they did.

The next three months flew by, and before they all knew it, it was time for graduation. Both Blair and Jo got accepted into Langley College, which wasn't very far away. And then Mrs. Garrett's son Raymond suddenly surprised her one day shortly before the girls' graduation, with an offer to help her set up her own business. He'd recently bought an old Armenian deli in Peekskill that had long since gone out of business, and it had a living room and two upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms that were adjoined to its shop and kitchen. At first Mrs. Garrett was going to turn down her son's offer, but then after she discussed it with Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie, they all realized that it would be a perfect opportunity for their family to stay together. Although Blair was now in remission, Mrs. Garrett truly did not want her living by herself in one of the college dorms or at the sorority house. Perhaps Blair was now eighteen and considered an adult, but it was still deeply important to Mrs. Garrett for her to be able to keep her eye on her, and even though Jo, Natalie, and Tootie never said anything about it to Blair, they admitted to Mrs. Garrett that they felt the same way. It was now more important than ever to all of them for their family to remain together, especially after everything that had happened over the course of the past school year. Therefore, as hard as it was for Mrs. Garrett to say goodbye to Eastland, she decided in the end to hand in her resignation and go into business for herself with her own gourmet food shop, which they called Edna's Edibles. Natalie and Tootie got permission from their parents to move in with Mrs. Garrett at the start of the next school year, and Blair and Jo also decided that they would live with Mrs. Garrett and help her and Natalie and Tootie run the shop in the evenings after their classes at college were over for the day.

The night before graduation, Mrs. Garrett, Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie were all sitting around in the lounge, playing Monopoly, talking, and just hanging out. Mrs. Garrett, Blair, and Jo were all sitting together on the loveseat in front of the coffee table and Natalie and Tootie were sitting on the floor.

"I can't believe it," said Tootie. "I can't believe this is our last official night here together at Eastland."

"I can't believe it, either," Natalie agreed. "I never thought you would leave Eastland, Mrs. Garrett."

"I can't believe I'm leaving Eastland either, girls. I thought I'd still be here for many more years to come. But then when Raymond came up out of nowhere and presented me with this incredible opportunity, I just couldn't say no. I know this is the right thing to do…for all of us," she said as she looked over at Blair and smiled.

"Yeah, you're right, Mrs. Garrett," said Tootie. "We can't let Blair and Jo's graduation split us up. We belong together."

"You know, before everything happened this last year, I...well, I never realized just how much I needed all of you," Blair said seriously. Blair had lost all her hair because of the chemotherapy, of course, but she typically wore a wig that looked remarkably similar to her own hair. Tonight, though, she didn't feel like wearing it and instead was wearing a beautiful white silk scarf tied around her head. "If it hadn't been for you guys…I don't know if I would've made it through all of this."

Mrs. Garrett smiled at Blair again and took her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Well, Blair, that's what families are for," she told her.

"Speaking of families, Blair, I'm curious about something. I don't mean to get too personal, but I can't help but wonder what's been going on between you and your parents lately. Have you guys spoken to each other at all during the past few months?" asked Jo.

"They've called once or twice here recently. Daddy wanted to take me on a little vacation to Europe after graduation, and Mother wanted to take me shopping. I told them no."

"You're still mad at them, aren't you?" Tootie asked.

After a long pause, Blair finally answered, "Sometimes, yes. I realize holding onto anger isn't the healthiest thing in the world to do, but you don't get over what they did overnight. And besides, when I talked to them, I could really sense it that they weren't calling me up after all this time because of _me_. They were doing it because of _them._ They didn't call me up because they were concerned about _my_ well-being or how _I_ was doing after battling cancer. They called me up because they wanted to be able to tell themselves that they'd made up for abandoning me by taking me on a vacation or a shopping spree. They only wanted to use me to make themselves feel better and soothe their own consciences.

"Back in the past, I would've said yes to that vacation and shopping spree because I would've bent over backwards to get any kind of attention from them at all. I'm not like that anymore. I know it now that I deserve better. From now on, _I refuse_ to be a toy to my parents for them to take out and play with for a little while and then put back into storage when they don't feel like playing anymore. I'm a human being, not an object, and until my parents realize that and acknowledge it and decide to start _really_ acting like parents, I'm not going anywhere with them or doing anything with them at all. And besides," Blair said as she wrapped her arm around Mrs. Garrett's shoulders, "why would I want them when I can have all of you, huh?"

Jo looked over at Blair and smiled and told her, "Yeah, you're right, Blair. You don't need them."

"Maybe not, but Blair, we sure need you," Mrs. Garrett said lovingly, and then she kissed her cheek. "I can't really express just how proud of you I am, sweetheart."

"We're all proud of you, Blair," said Natalie. "You're really incredible to survive everything you did this past year, especially without your parents by your side. And anyway, as far as I'm concerned, it's your parents' loss."

"You won't get any argument from me," said Jo. "They're idiots, Blair. And creeps. Don't worry about them."

"You said it, Jo," Tootie agreed. "And anyway, Blair, it's like you said. You don't need them when you have all of us."

"You're right to not let your parents get away with that, Blair. That only shows how much you've grown over these past several months, and again, I am _so_ proud of you. And the important thing is, you're alright now, and you're going to stay alright for a very long time to come," said Mrs. Garrett.

"Thanks, you guys," Blair said to the girls. Then she looked into Mrs. Garrett's eyes and told her, "Thanks, Mom."

Mrs. Garrett responded by giving Blair an enormous hug, and several moments later, Natalie, Tootie, and even Jo followed suit.


End file.
